Eco-sanitation, India continued
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Life in rural India has in many respects remained much the same for the past several hundred years. The reality is that villagers eek out a subsistence living to pay for the large families they support (it is still accepted that children are expected to provide for their parents when they get older and a large family increases the chances of a better retirement) and struggle to get at least one child, invariably a son, through the education system.
There are many dilemmas in this society. Whilst many live at a subsistence level, they are still affected by the technological age with which they have contact through satellite television, mobile phones and the internet.
The benefits of modernisation are clear to see – better health education, self empowerment etc. However, the impact of messages received through these facilities is not always positive. For instance, in a closed society where females are often still perceived as second class citizens, the availability of images showing even partially clothed women can create very negative impacts. WTN is very conscious of all these varying challenges. Our work improves not only local conditions but also the perceptions of the communities, by creating projects that provide more than simply physical benefits. We seek to encourage self-sustaining, ecological projects generated through the self-empowerment of the people themselves.
One example of our work that highlights this is our provision of eco-sanitation toilets. Few villages or semi-urban areas in India have toilets. In fact 52% of people in Asia do not have access to basic sanitary facilities. If you live near the coast, then the sea disposes of human faeces, but inland the use of wasteland and/or bushes is common. Specific, well-known areas are used solely for the purpose of human defecation. There are several problems attached to this, not the least being the spread of disease.
Contamination of water with human faeces causes the transmission of diseases such as typhoid. Poor health resulting from poor sanitation has a huge effect on economies, with money that could be used to purchase food or education being spent on medicines. National economies also feel the strain of providing medical treatment; people become too ill to work, their livelihoods destroyed by preventable disease. In India, 73 million working days are lost each year as a result of waterborne illnesses.
Open defecation is one of the major causes of disease anywhere in the world. Faeces provide the perfect breeding ground for a wide variety of parasites and flies, which invariably settle on hands, eyes and food, all obvious vectors for the transmission of disease. As the same areas are used daily, regular contact with parasites makes the transmission of disease from ground to human inevitable. This also increases the likelihood of cross-contamination as people and animals travel between ‘infected’ and ‘non-infected’ areas, especially those near water. Such problems are exacerbated when water is scarce, and personal and food hygiene are not as high as they should be.
For women, the problem is greater still, and 1.3 billion women and girls in the developing world do not have access to basic sanitation. The best opportunity a woman has to relieve herself in the most privacy is just before sunrise and just after sunset. Unfortunately this also is the time when she runs the greatest risk of being bitten by scorpion, snake or spider. Similarly, these times are also well known by the voyeur or criminal, and it is not unusual to hear of women being watched, attacked or even raped. For young schoolgirls the problem can occur during the time when they are menstruating. Because many schools do not have appropriate facilities, there is no opportunity for girls to change sanitary towels and so it is quite usual for girls to miss one week every month out of their education. This is hardly empowering.
Wherever the Need decided to tackle both these problems in villages, schools and semi-urban environments by introducing women-only eco-sanitation toilets. We commissioned a set of designs that included four ‘stalls’, including one that was child friendly, a bathing area and a clothes washing area. This facility is totally enclosed, giving maximum privacy and security to those using it.
Eco-sanitation/compost toilets consist of a raised platform above two chambers, one in use and one composting. Organic material is regularly added to the chambers to introduce carbon for composting, to oxygenate the composting process and neutralise odours. It takes roughly five months for pathogen-free compost to be produced. To help prevent the toilet from smelling, faeces and urine are not allowed to mix, as a chemical reaction between the two creates odour. Therefore, a pipe takes urine to a separate chamber. This may be used to make pellets that can nourish soils to increase crop growth.
Eco-sanitation facilities can lead to many benefits, not least enabling hard-earned wages to be spent on food or education, rather than medical supplies to combat parasitic and intestinal illnesses. The compost produced is either sold – there is a ready demand – or used by the villagers themselves to replace expensive chemical fertilisers. As with all of our projects, we run a full education programme, and provide toilets only when the local community asks for them, and is willing to help out with their installation – either financially or with labour.
Wherever the Need (WTN) is committed to working in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of 2015, and playing its part in helping to halve the number of people – currently 2.6 billion - who have no access to basic sanitation facilities. Eco-sanitation toilets are part of this strategy.
There are five phases to this project.
(i) Discussions/education forums with local people to ensure that they understand how to use the new facilities, and we are aware of the cultural aspects attached to such a sensitive issue.
(ii) Setting up and training self-help groups to deal with toilet maintenance and compost disposal.
(iii) Selecting an appropriate site for the eco-sanitation toilet, and agreeing with the local community about their participation in the project.
(iv) Local production of compressed earth blocks (CEBs) for use as building materials (see later).
(v) Employing local labour, preferably female, to build the facilities.
Eco-sanitation toilets address most aspects of the holistic cycle:
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Management and Conservation: They save water and prevent contamination of water sources.
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Sustainable Livelihoods: They provide income through the sale of compost, or through increased revenue from higher crop yields as a result of increased soil fertility.
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Agriculture and Food Security: They increase soil fertility through the addition of compost and urine, thus improving food crop yields. There is no risk to health from food crops grown this way.
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Health: They are a safe way of dealing with human waste, as the composting process kills pathogens. They dramatically reduce the spread of intestinal illness. They are hygienic, and do not smell or attract flies.
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Training and Local Understanding: They are simple in design, and can be built using local labour and materials. They use appropriate, sustainable technology and are operational at village level.
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Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability: They are built using eco-friendly materials (read more: CEBs), and avoid using harmful chemicals to treat human waste. They are self-contained and protect water sources form contamination.
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Education: They are coupled with hygiene education programmes.
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Empowerment: They are of great benefit to women and girls. In a village where we have recently finished installing women-only facilities, the response from local women has been overwhelming. The toilets are kept clean, are respected and have helped women regain their self-respect. There can be few simpler ways to empower women than to give them back control of their need to use a toilet. They are truly a win-win facility.
Units can be designed for both family or village use, and this particular model caters for up to 350 women and children, and costs about £4,000 - around £12 per person.
We keep administration costs to a minimum, and our equipment, materials and labour are cost- effective and environmentally appropriate, due to strong links with the areas in which we work and our skilled, knowledgeable, dedicated staff. We strive to be good stewards of all resources entrusted to us, professional in their management, openly accountable for our work, and systematic in evaluating our impact and effectiveness.
We accept all responsibility for our collective and individual actions. Wherever possible, projects are set up on an individual basis, so that companies may have their own ring-fenced package. We ensure delivery of high quality services in a cost-effective manner, providing accurate and timely feedback on work. This feedback can be in any form, within reason, that the donor wishes: usually photographs, reports and messages from those helped by the project, but we can also make videos or take people out to visit and experience the project themselves.
We like to form partnerships between the charity, donors and the people they are helping, providing regular reports on where money is being spent and what benefits it is providing (sample formats for our ongoing impact assessment of projects are available on request).
Wherever the Need has over ten years’ experience of setting up and carrying out development work in over 20 different countries. We are flexible, and if donors have special needs and desires we can try to incorporate them, while at the same time we understand and can give advice on exactly what works, and what doesn’t.
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