Harriet Achen stands in front of an expectant crowd, betraying no sign of nerves. The 14-year-old’s portrayal of a rural Ugandan mother of five is convincing. She busies herself setting children tasks to help prepare a family meal and her fellow actors scuttle around obeying Achen’s every command.
The floor is swept, each dish is properly covered with white cloth and, crucially, everyone washes their hands before the meal begins. Fellow actor Emmanuel Achibu looks hungry. He recites a rushed prayer, collapses on the floor and pretends to eat in one fluid movement. The crowd erupts in laughter.
There is a serious message being delivered alongside the comedy. Achen and Achibu, from Amorikot primary school in Katine sub-county in rural northern Uganda, are performing a series of plays and poems at a National Sanitation Week event, organised by the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref). The aim is to help raise awareness of sanitation issues among the Katine community.
KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 20 /PRNewswire/ — You may not be able to
travel to a developing country and see the global water crisis first hand,
but now you can visit WaterPartners Village — a virtual exploration of
the water crisis — launching across social networking sites, like Second
Life, on World Water Day, March 22.
“The purpose of WaterPartners Village is to use a virtual world to
break down barriers of space, time, language and culture,” said Steve
Byers, director of development and communication for WaterPartners.
“Through characters and places that represent a composite of real-world
experiences, visitors can better understand the daily reality faced by more
than a billion of their fellow world citizens who do not have access to
safe water.”
Second Life, a 3-D virtual world, allows people to see what life is
like for Araja, Dahnay and Miguel, the fictional characters profiled in the
village. The WaterPartners Village characters hail from India, Ethiopia and
Honduras to portray life experiences that differ dramatically from that of
most Americans. These virtual villagers are not real people, but their
stories are compiled from and reflect the experiences of people facing the
daily struggle for clean drinking water and sanitation in the developing
world.
In the International Year of Sanitation, Earth Report travels to Bangladesh to discover changing attitudes to hygiene. No more ‘open defecation’: instead of top-down solutions, the new Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach has eradicated open defecation in more than 300 villages. Earth Report investigates. The programme features CLTS guru Kamal Kar. Read the transcript and view a movie clip here.
Clean Living’ is broadcast on BBC World at the following times (all times quoted as UK time zone currently GMT):
Friday 14th March - 20:30, with repeats at 10:30 on Monday 17th March, 15:30 on Tuesday 18th, and 02:30 and 08:30 on Wednesday 19th.
Clean Living was produced with the help of the Department for International Development - Environment, Water & Sanitation, UN Water, UNICEF - Water, Environment and Sanitation, and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC).
Kamal Kar also appears in the Plan International video “Bangladesh Community Led Total Sanitation”. In 2004, Plan introduced CLTS in over 200 villages in the Dinajpur District of Bangladesh. By 2007, all villages in Plan’s target area had eliminated open defecation and the entire population now has access to hygienic latrines. The video highlights the crucial role of children and women in CLTS campaigns.
WHERE’S THE LOO? is an Earth Report exploration of what the Ethiopian Government with support of Development Partners is doing to meet to the target of 100 percent sanitation coverage by 2012, and positive behavior change on hygiene practices. From the vast highlands of Amhara Region to rubbish tips in the middle of Addis Ababa, and rural orchards across the Rift Valley, the film reveals the progress of the Government’s universal access plan for Hygiene and Sanitation.
The film is part of global communication efforts coordinated by UNICEF to raise awareness on sanitation during 2008 - the International Year of Sanitation. WHERE’S THE LOO? is produced by Television Trust for the Environment (TVE) for BBC with the overall guidance, support and facilitation of WSP-Africa. It is sponsored by the Department for International Development (DfID).
Broadcast on BBC World at 2030 GMT on Friday 21st March
Repeats of the film were screened on:
Monday 24th March at 10:30 (GMT)
Tuesday 25th March at 15:30 (GMT)
Wednesday 26th March at 02:30 and 08:30 (GMT)
To commemorate the “International Year of Sanitation - 2008,” the Water and Environmental Sanitation Network India (WES-Net India) and its constituent member organizations, UNICEF, WaterAid; Plan India, invite photojournalists working in newspapers and magazines across India to take part in a photo contest on themes related to sanitation. Entries must be received by April 15.
To be eligible, photojournalists are required to publish photographs with captions relating to the following sanitation themes: Sanitary facilities (rural/urban); sewerage systems; hygiene behavior; river pollution issues; solid waste disposal; and wastewater management.The photos must run for a period of one week beginning on world water day, March 20.
IDRC (Canada) has produced a short slideshow (10 slides) illustrating the scope of the sanitation problem and the economic, social, and health impacts on the daily lives of those lacking access to basic sanitation services. It also outlines the efforts underway to share best practices and accelerate progress.
The series shared emerging experience and lessons in a number of hot topics in sanitation and hygiene. The final 90 minute session on 5 February 2008 will be a regional roundup and debate.
Previous sessions were on:
Where there is no household sanitation: Managing Public and Community Toilets (5th Jan)
It just won’t go away: the Management of Fecal Sludge (22 Jan)
Going to scale in rural sanitation: Experience and Lessons from Total Sanitation approach (29 Jan)
All the materials used in this series will be made available on the World Bank Water Supply & Sanitation web-site for a broader audience.
“Waste not Waste”, the latest film in TVE’s Earth Report series, is all about ecological sanitation.
The premiere of “Waste not Waste” on BBC World will take place on:
Friday 25th Jan - 20:30 (GMT) with repeats at 10:30 on Monday, 15:30 on Tuesday, and 02:30 and 08:30 on Wednesday.
Directed by Joshka Wessels, the film takes us from waterless urinals at schools in Germany to Breskens in the Netherlands where Mr. Sietz Leeflang has installed dry toilets in his house. After Europe, Tunisia and Morocco are visited to show how ecological sanitation has been introduced in dry areas.
A toilet demonstration in school causes some embarassment (TVE / Joshka Wessels).
A new campaign calls for the introduction of basic sanitation to help end the cycle of economic deprivation in the developing world. WaterAid says thousands of people, especially children, are dying every day because they lack access to clean water and toilets. The UK-based charity says their plight is the silent emergency and, along with the United Nations, it’s lobbying wealthier nations to take urgent action.
The opening sequence shows a clip from one of WaterAid’s four “Pooing in public” viral videos. The videos, released on World Toilet Day, 19 November 2007, aim to draw attention to the problem of open defecation by portraying Londoners being “caught short” in their city.
News and Resources for 2008 International Year of Sanitation
Maintained by the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre, USAID’s Environmental Health knowledge management activity and the Hygiene Improvement Project.
