Sanitation is off-track
Recent UN meeting declares sanitation as the most-off track MDG. The following link has more details.
Global sanitation target under threat
Lack of access to improved sanitation is an obvious example of technology in-justice. Global effort is needed to build the sector and address the issue.
No Comments » | Add your commentLow cost toilet promotion
Still more than 50 per cent of people in Nepal defecate in the open.
When asked why they hadn’t built a toilet, people blamed financial constraints.
That is because people think only about costly cemented toilet blocks – even though their houses are built using straw, timber and mud. People think they need a corrugated galvanized iron roof for a toilet, even though they are living under hay roofs. They are not aware of low cost options for toilets.
Normally, the cost of simple toilet up to pan level or sub structure is around NPR 3,000 (£23). Actually, the part which increases toilet cost, discouraging poor people towards building toilet, is types of costly structures. That is why when working with communities to improve sanitation, Practical Action promote a ’7 B’ approach while constructing low cost toilets. 7 B stands for the 7 different toilet structures that can be built with locally available materials:
Bamboo
Bag (Jute or plastic bags)
Bush (Hay)
Bricks
Boulders (stone masonry)
Blocks
Blend (mixture of two or more materials)
The core concept of reducing the cost is the use of locally available resources, including material and human resource. It also ensures ownership, sustainability and easy promotion. The other main concept is to ensure people get into the habit of using the toilet. Improving the condition of toilet then comes in the second phase.
Among the 7B options, normally bricks, blocks and boulders are more expensive. However, it is not always true. First class brick is not required for building toilets; it can be built with second class or even built with brick bats. Blocks with higher cement sand ratio can be used for making toilets cheaper. Also, if boulders are locally available, it can also be a cheaper option.
You can find more information about the work we do in Nepal here and on water and sanitation here.
4 Comments » | Add your commentOnce upon a time…
….there was a little girl who loved stories. As a little slip of a thing, she used to stand and swing on the garden gate, waving to passers-by in the hope that she could chat to them and ask them questions to find out their stories (she was a very curious little girl). A few years later, her very patient, very wonderful mother would read her favourite Maurice Sendak stories Outside Over There and Where The Wild Things Are to her every night. When she was at school, she’d set her alarm super early so she could wake up and read Enid Blyton books before going to lessons. English was always her favourite subject, and characters such as Elizabeth Bennett, Scout Finch, Jo March and Scarlett O’Hara were as familiar to her as her oldest friends. And then she studied the art of telling a story – for it is an art – during an English Literature degree at university.
Now that little girl (who’s not so little anymore) works for Practical Action.
I am that girl. And I work at Practical Action because I want to change the world. But my passion is storytelling: both discovering a good story, and then telling it in the best possible way. But how do you change the world with a story?
Well, this week, we at Practical Action launched our next five year strategy. It is bold and ambitious and exciting – but challenging too. The targets, both in terms of fundraising and impact at scale, are high.
But that’s because there are huge problems to solve. Right now 1.3 billion people across the world don’t have clean, safe water. 1 billion people don’t have enough food to eat. 2.6 billion people don’t have adequate sanitation. And 1.6 billion people don’t have access to modern energy. Too many people live in abject poverty. It is a world of great technology injustice.
There is no question that this needs to change. So over the next five years we will work towards four universal goals:
- Sustainable access to modern energy service for all by 2030
- Systems which provide food security and livelihoods for people in rural areas
- Improved access to drinking water, sanitation and waste services for people living in towns and cities
- Reduced risk of disasters for marginalised communities
And by the end of this next strategy period, in 2017, we will have transformed the lives of 6 million people.
That is an exhilarating prospect for me.
Because 6 million people = 6 million stories to find and tell.
Each of those 6 million is not just a ‘project beneficiary’ but a living, feeling, thinking human being with their own unique life story. And those 6 million life stories are 6 million more reasons to support Practical Action, today and for the future.
I can’t wait to get started.
4 Comments » | Add your comment
Challenges of urban sanitation
Practical Action has launched a project to improve sanitation situation in the slum areas of Ronda and Kiptembwo in Nakuru, Kenya, which will benefit 190,000 women and men.
Both the slums have very poor status of sanitation, with no toilets available and where they are available, they are used by at least 50 people.
Both the slums have areas where open defecation is common. This creates serious health risks. The project will be pioneering the approach of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), in an urban context.
Practical Action will be working with Umande Trust on this project and supported by the Municipal Council of Nakuru. The project will use participatory approaches through community health workers to enable tenants and landlords to improve their sanitation system.
This process of demand creation will then be supported by introducing affordable technologies and financial systems. A commercial bank has already shown interest to support the project through soft loans. Currently the project is carrying out baseline surveys and developing monitoring indicators. The project is well supported by the local water company, the Ministry of Health and other NGOs working in Nakuru.
3 Comments » | Add your commentProud to be ODF
If you’re squeamish about poo, look away now! Open defecation is not something people in the developed world have to think about. But for many of the poorest people living in developing countries, open defecation is not an unusual sight – 1.1 billion people defecate in the open.
The health implications are huge. More than 2 million children die each year from diarrhoea and millions more suffer poor health as a result of poor sanitation.
Over the last three years, Practical Action has been working with communities in Nepal addressing problems to improve sanitation and health. An important part of this project has been to help communities become Open Defecation Free (ODF).
Nepal’s Sanitation Plan has a comprehensive list of points, to be met by a community, to achieve ODF status:
• Proper use of toilets with access to water;
• Hand washing with soap or cleaning agent at critical times(before eating, feeding children, cooking and serving food, after use of toilet
• Safe handling and treatment of drinking water
• Maintenance of personal hygiene (regular nail cutting, bathing, cloth washing, tooth brushing);
• Proper solid and liquid waste management (Availability of bins/pits to collect/dispose solid waste) in and out of the home;
• All households should have toilet and hand washing facilities such as soap, washing platform;
• Availability of brush or brooms or cleaning agent, etc. at the toilet;
• Covering food and water;
• Regular cleaning of rooms, yards, and household compound;
• Availability of managed animal shed and covered waste water pit
• Availability of improved cooking stove/bio‐gas and improved kitchen management;
• All public institutions should have users‐friendly clean, hygienic toilets with hand washing and proper waste management facilities;
• Social map showing toilet; and community committee message/slogan for healthy community
I recently joined a group comprising media persons and other stake holders including local government officials to Sharadanagar, an emerging Village Development Committee to see if Sharadanagar met the criteria to be declared an ODF community or not.
As soon as we reached the venue I jumped off the bus and started scouring Sharadanagar hoping to find waste. But I had never seen such a clean community. All the houses were clean, small or big, thatched or brick. Each and every house had a toilet, not just a toilet but every house had a clean kitchen with kitchen racks and clean dishwashing areas. I had no idea what it takes for a community to be declared an ODF until I saw the list which each and every visitor was keen on checking.
The list is pretty long but at the end of the tour the visitors agreed that Sharadanagar indeed meets all the criteria. I certainly agreed and I know that in no time Sharadanagar will be declared ODF. This is a huge step forward and a source of pride to the whole community.
2 Comments » | Add your commentMaking water safe
Globally, a significant proportion of disease is due to unsafe drinking water. This accumulates further in absence of better sanitation and hygiene.
In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that almost one tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. The same report said that 10.6 per cent of deaths in Nepal are WSH (water, sanitation and hygiene) related. It also reported that 14,700 people die each year due to preventable diarrhoeal disease.
Although the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage claimed that 80 per cent of total households in Nepal have access to improved drinking water (DWSS 2010), water quality is a major challenge. As more than 50 per cent of the population defecate in open spaces, drinking water contamination is a common issue.
Water is a major medium for faecal oral transmission, causing millions of deaths globally and thousands in Nepal.
A water safety plan is a tool that ensures the delivery of safe drinking water from its catchments to consumers (“in Nepali Mul Dekhi Mukh samma”).
Water Safety Plans (WSPs) has been taken as a new concept and tool for managing risk in assuring water quality in water systems from source to the consumers. WSPs offer the most cost-effective and protective means of consistently assuring a supply of safe drinking water. WSPs operate through ‘catchment to consumers’ risk management approaches based on sound science and supported by appropriate monitoring. It can be applied across a wide range of situations from household solutions to community water supply schemes to large water supply utilities. WSPs identify the possible hazards in a water supply system with the level of risk, how it can be controlled and the actions required for hazard control.
For further information on our work in Nepal on safe water, sanitation and hygiene, go to http://practicalaction.org/region_nepal_healthy_homes
1 Comment » | Add your commentLoos and luck
I really need the loo. I’ve been at my desk for well over three hours and so far have filled my body with two cups of tea, one cup of coffee and a fair amount of water too. But I have the misfortune of working on the very top floor of Practical Action’s head office, which means that a trip to the loo involves climbing all the way downstairs. And I’m so engrossed in my work (and also a little lazy – it is Friday, after all) that I really can’t be bothered….
I’m currently writing a proposal to fundraise for a hugely exciting new project that Practical Action is embarking on in Zimbabwe. We’re working with rural communities in the southern provinces of Gwanda and Mwenezi, endeavouring to reach out to 200,000 people to improve their access to clean water, ensure they have adequate sanitation and reduce their health risks from poor hygiene. The figure is massive. 200,000 people is over double the size of my home town!
Most of these people currently live several kilometres away from a safe water supply. The task of collecting water usually falls to women and children who will spend whole days carrying up to 80 litres of water. The journey can be dangerous – these women are vulnerable to mugging and rape; and the water they do collect often isn’t fit for human consumption anyway.
Furthermore, many families in Gwanda and Mwenezi don’t have toilets in their own homes as they can’t afford to build them. This means that people usually just relieve themselves outside in the bush. This morning I’ve read stories from women and girls who describe the complete loss of dignity and embarrassment they feel while doing this, especially when they’re menstruating.
Suddenly my reluctance to walk down a flight of stairs to go to the toilet demonstrates not only laziness, but complete ignorance of how fortunate I am. Wherever I am, it only ever takes me a few minutes to fetch a glass of clean water or go to the loo.
I am lucky. But it shouldn’t be about luck. Having clean water and being able to go the toilet without putting your safety or health at risk are basic human rights to which people everywhere are entitled, whether you live in Warwickshire or Gwanda.
Now I really must go – I’m desperate.
2 Comments » | Add your commentIn Kenya where we’re improving lots of lives
I’m in Kenya visiting some of Practical Action’s projects and over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing my experiences with you through this blog.
My first stop was the Practical Action office in Nairobi where I met a number of enthusiastic staff who updated me on all the projects they’re working on and the impact that they’re having on poor communities.
Project officers Patrick Mwanzia and Lydia Muchiri work on projects to improve the access of poor women and men to basic services such as water, sanitation and energy.
They told me about an exciting project that I’m going to visit next week in the urban slums of Kisumu and Kitale. It aims to bring real improvements to around 190,000 poor people by protecting water springs, installing toilets, sanitation blocks, home composting kits and two kilometres of drainage and much, much more.
In Kibera, the team is working on the installation of a library – the first of its kind in an informal settlement (slum).
They’re busy working on three pilot micro-hydro demonstration schemes with the Ministry of Energy, which is supportive of decentralising the supply of micro–hydro in order to make such services viable and more sustainable.
Over 90% of rural households in Kenya use firewood for cooking and there’s a lot of intervention work going on across the country to prevent people from dying of smoke-related diseases from open fires. Examples include working with communities to install improved stoves and smoke hoods.
And in Nakuru they’re championing lots of work in solid waste management.
Lydia said: “We’ve been able to get these services decentralised so we’ve given people the opportunity to set up their own enterprises, introduced financing initiatives so they can borrow money and trained them on sorting and grading. It’s a fantastic example of how we’re improving the environment here and improving people’s livelihoods.”
I have many more examples in my notebook that I will share with you over the coming weeks so please stay tuned to my blog to find out more! Now out into the field to see Practical Action in action….
No Comments » | Add your commentSometimes Toilets Only Make Things Worse
People who have read my blogs know how passionate I am about toilets. Extending proper sanitation to a population (and ensuring 100% coverage) is probably one of the most effective health interventions you can make in the developing world. “What about vaccination?” I hear some people cry, and they’d have a point, but according the World Health Organisation, diarrhoea is the number three killer in low income countries. Respiratory infections, and heart disease are numbers 1 & 2.
Anyway, I wasn’t intending to write about the relative importance of sanitation (perhaps a debate for another day). I actually wanted to say that poor sanitation is often worse than none at all. Here’s a photo of a latrine I saw in Peru, where I was recently. It had been introduced as a part of a government scheme to build latrines for poor people in rural area where sanitation coverage was low. Thousands of latrines like this one pictured had sprung up across the country-side in the course of a few weeks built by a contractor, who came in & built the standard design in all the right places. BUT, with no community engagement; no education about the importance of hygiene; and no consideration for children, the elderly, or disabled in the designs, many have now fallen into disrepair.
It’s quite likely that there has been no health benefit arising from this well-intentioned programme. Actually, this latrine (and many others like it) is possibly a health hazard!
Of course I’m not arguing against schemes that help people to gain access to a latrine, it’s just that it must be done properly. Schemes must involve the people, and take their views into account. Otherwise you may as well not bother. Indeed you could even be making matters worse!
2 Comments » | Add your commentDo you know my name?
I’m in Zimbabwe at the moment, visiting our office and some of our project work to bring myself up to date with what’s happening in our programme here. The day before yesterday we visited a couple of rural schools just outside Harare, where we have been helping with the building of classrooms and the provision of drinking water and toilets. At one of the schools (Domboshava Primary School) we were lucky enough to not only see the construction work underway, but also to be entertained by the school’s health club, who’s members had turned out on a Saturday morning to show us how they were tackling the problem of water and sanitation related illness in their school and homes.
The area of water and sanitation is a great illustration of how access to improved technologies can make a very big difference to people’s lives, but only when its combined with the application of some new knowledge as well. Diarrhoeal disease is one of the greatest causes of deaths amongst the under 5′s in the developing world. Having a toilet and a safe water supply from a handpump or a tap is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to end diarrhoeal disease and other sanitary related infections. People’s behaviour also has to change to break what is known as the ‘faecal-oral transmission route’. In short this means finding ways of stopping human faeces from entering your mouth! Hand-washing at key times is critical (think of all those ‘now wash you hands’ notices we have in public toilets in the UK!). But hygiene in the home including the safe storage of food (keeping it away from flies in particular) and the safe storage of water (to stop it becoming polluted) are also important, as is, of course, everyone using an hygienic toilet or latrine.
The Domboshava Primary School Health Club had clearly not only got the message but was anxious to pass it on to us. We were treated to a number of songs and poems about hygiene, but my favourite was from the 4 children shown in the photograph accompanying this blog. It went:
Do you know my name? Do you know my name?
My name is F. My name is F.
F for Faeces
F for Flies
F for Fingers
F for Food
Thus reminding us in a rather neat verse three of the principle means we can, if we are not careful, put in our mouths what we really would rather not think about!
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