Nepal: menstruation a bugbear for schoolgirls

Rural women in Nepal, especially schoolgirls, are still treated as untouchables during menstruation, resulting in health problems and growing absenteeism.

Social Development Advisor of WaterAid Nepal Om Prasad Gautam says, “Menstrual hygiene is neglected and people do not wish to explore this subject as it is still considered a social taboo.”

Moreover, hygiene is neglected by girls, especially in the rural areas, due to lack of availability and inability to afford sanitary napkins. In a study conducted by WaterAid Nepal in four schools of Nepal, it was observed that the use of sanitary pads is higher among girls in urban schools (50%) in comparison to rural (19%), which clearly mentions that family income affects the use of sanitary napkins.

Schoolgirls also refrain from going to toilets because there is no lock, no water and no disposal facility. They are also seen to avoid going to toilets during menstruation as most schools do not have separate latrines for girls. According to Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES), only 41% of schools in Nepal have latrines with only 26% of schools having separate latrines for girls.

Menstruation is the major contributing factor in absenteeism and poor academic performance among schoolgirls. Girls often remain absent and drop out of schools because of bad sanitation facilities in schools. In WaterAid´s study, some girls ailed by constant worries, though physically present in the school, were seen to be performing poorly.

“Many girls remain absent for 4 days a month during their menstruation cycle,” Anita Pradhan, Documentation Manager of WaterAid Nepal said, adding, “Remaining absent in school for 48 days a year is a huge loss for students.”

According to a survey conducted by Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH) in 7 schools, 94 percent girls went to school but 6 percent remained absent during their menstruation period.

Furthermore, religious and cultural taboos concerning menstruating girls have prevented women from being independent actors. Gautam says he was surprised to find that the girls were asked to not touch water, touch food in the kitchen and not walk through the road near a temple by their mothers.

A girl from Kathmandu shared that her family didn´t celebrate Dashain and Tihar after she looked in a mirror during her menstruation period, as this would bring bad luck.”

Menstrual hygiene has thus a vital aspect of health education and television programs, health officers, teachers and parents can play a very important role in transmitting a message of proper menstrual hygiene. This would save them from many health hazards. Currently, organizations like NEWAH, Lumanti and ENPHO have been working to bring about changes in this sector by spreading awareness on menstruation hygiene.

Related publication: WaterAid (2009). Is menstrual hygiene and management an issue for adolescent school girls?. Kathmandu, Nepal, WaterAid. Full report

Source: Mimansha Joshi, Republica, 29 Oct 2009

Nepal: Sanitation finally a priority

The diarrhoea that spread earlier in 2009 in 18 districts across Nepal killed nearly 300 people; nearly six months after the initial outbreak, four ministries have finally made a joint commitment to launch a massive water and sanitation campaign to meet the state’s target of providing complete sanitation to all by 2017.

“We were not able to launch all components of water and sanitation in a comprehensive manner earlier, which is why we had diarrhea-related deaths every year,” said Dr. Babu Ram Marasini, chief of health sector reform unit at the Ministry of Health.

The programme was launched on Global Handwashing Day on 15 October 2009 as a comprehensive and combined effort by the Ministries of Health, Education, Physical Planning and Works, and Local Development. The programme will see extension of the construction of latrines in all 75 districts, awareness programmes, establishment of a national sanitation fund among others, according to Kamal Adhikari, an official at the Department of Water Supply and Sewerage. Adhikari also said that the ministries have planned to review the existing policies to provide complete sanitation to all by 2017.

According to a report by WaterAid, about 14.2 million people do not have access to sanitation and 7.1 million lack access to safe drinking water and sanitation in the country; similarly, according to the Ministry of Health, 54 percent of the country does not have access to latrines. Likewise, only 37 percent wash their hands, and only 12 percent use soap. Also, 45 percent of deaths caused by avoidable diseases is because of unsafe drinking water and lack of sanitation. “Earlier, we used to implement programmes related to water and sanitation separately but we are now planning to go ahead in a joint and comprehensive manner,” said Adhikari.

Source: The Kathmandu Post; The Rising Nepal; Gorkhapatra; Naya Patrika; Annapurna Post; Kantipur; Nepal Samacharpatra / NGO Forum, 15 Oct 2009

Bangladesh: hygiene promotion for men, WaterAid pictures

Forum theatres are one of WaterAid’s new approaches of improving hygiene in Bangladesh by focusing on men. See below photos of a pilot show in Jogdol bazaar, Magura in west Bangladesh.

Hygiene promotion for men is also being addressed in an EU-funded rehabilitation project in Nepal being carried out by NGO Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH), with support from the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. Read more in IRC’s Source Bulletin.

Nepal, Kavre district: household centered sanitation programme in Nala

A household-centered environmental sanitation programme is being implemented in Nala VDC of Kavre district for the first time in Nepal for managed and sustainable urbanization. The programme was launched officially by the Constitution Assembly member Krishna Prasad Sapkota on September 7, 2009 in Kavre.

He told that the household centered sanitation programme will be the foundation to the improvement of environmental sanitation in the village. Dr. Roshan Raj Shrestha, Chief Technical Advisor of UN HABITAT South Asian Region, suggested the locals to give top priority to planning phase while preparing the sanitation plan. He added that the locals should give up old tradition of planning and the households and communities should be placed at the center in addition to prioritizing infrastructural development. “Local people will be involved from planning to implementation phase of household centered sanitation programme in Nala,” said Padma Sundar Joshi, Executive Director of Center for Integrated Urban Development. He told that most of programmes in Nepal fail to meet its objectives because the target groups are not given prime consideration at the time of planning.

Household-centered environmental sanitation is a new concept designed by the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) which is different from other projects developed for bringing improvement in sanitation sector. This household-centered sanitation programme is being implemented in Nala VDC under the coordination of Centre for Integrated Urban Development (CIUD) with financial and technical support of Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) and UN HABITAT to bring improvement in environmental sanitation in the Nala VDC. Mingma Sherpa of EAWAG told that local people will be involved from planning to implementation phase of household centered sanitation programme in Nala VDC. “The household-centered sanitation plan will be conducted in ten phases in Nala,” he said.

Household-centered sanitation programme approach places households, communities and neighborhood at the centre of the planning process, adopting participatory processes from planning until the implementation stage. It encompasses an integrated approach where safe water supply, sanitation and hygiene are addressed simultaneously. Similar household-centered sanitation programmes are also being implemented in six other countries including Viet Nam, India and Costa Rica.

Source: Rajdhani & Nepal Samacharpatra / NGO Forum, 09 Sep 2009

Nepal, Kathmandu: public toilets – few and fetid

Shital Rai, a Bachelors’ Level student, was walking near the Old Bus Park beside Tundikhel when she had to answer the nature’s call. But when she reached the sole public toilet near the City Market inside the bus park premises, she nearly suffocated on the fetid smell. Her only option was to enter a restaurant where she had to pay Rs. 30 for a cup of coffee – and a chance to relieve herself.

“The caretakers charge Rs. 3 per person, but they hardly ever clean the toilet and its surroundings. Are the concerned authorities sleeping?” asks Rai. There are 36 public restrooms to cater to Kathmandu district’s over 2.5 million-strong population. A recent study by Environment and Public Health Organization (ENPHO) shows that 45-140 males and 12-30 females use a public latrine in a day. But 18 percent of these latrines have no water supply, 65 percent have no hand-washing facility, while 10 percent are cleaned just once a day. Most of them have no proper ventilation and lack special provisions for the disabled and children.

These restrooms are managed both privately and by the municipality. But no one monitors these toilets. Ram Gurung, caretaker of a toilet under Sky Bridge near Sundhara said, “We have been facing water shortage and pipe blockage since three months. But no one has come to attend to the problems.” Blaming the public, Gurung complained of breakage and stealing of metal taps, random spitting, vulgar pictures and rough language on the walls.

Rabin Shrestha, Chief of Environmental Management Department at the Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) accepts negligence in monitoring public toilets for which he blames the country’s defunct political system. Shrestha said the City Service Center (CSC) programme had helped most of the toilets improve their hygiene standards. Three toilets have been constructed, one each at Chabahil, Bhotahiti and Khulla Manch. With the CSC programme, public toilets have seen lots of improvements including addition of bathing. But more needs to be done.

Source: Jenee Rai, Kathmandu Post / NGO Forum, 10 Sep 2009

Nepal: opportunity to use toilet for the first time in 83 years

Silgadi: Haridatta Bhatta, 83, a resident of Nuwakot of Kalikasthan VDC-6 felt uneasy while using a toilet for the first time in his life. Bhatta, who has been practicing open air defecation, has used toilet for the first time in his life. Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH) has initiated to construct toilets in Nuwakot located 34 kilometers far from Silgadi, district headquarters of Doti district.

Bhatta shared that he felt very uneasy to use the newly constructed toilet in his house. Not only Haridatta, Ram Bahadur Bika, 49, has also similar kind of experience. Ram Bahadur, who used to defecate in the open, shared his experience, “I could not defaecate in the toilet in the first time.”

Not only Haridatta and Ram Bahadur, about 72 families in ward no. 6 of Kalikasthan VDC have constructed toilets after completion of the Nuwakot Drinking Water, Health Education and Sanitation Project launched in Mid-August 2008 with support of Nepal Water for Health. The project was completed at an investment of about Rs. 1.1 million including financial support worth Rs. 879,586 from NEWAH and local’s labour contribution worth Rs. 240,028.

Source: Gorkhapatra / NGO Forum, 25 Sep 2009

Tomatoes thrive on urine diet

Using human urine as a fertiliser produces bumper crops of tomatoes that are safe to eat, scientists have found.

Their research was published in August 2009 in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Surendra Pradhan, an environmental biology researcher at the University of Kuopio, Finland, and colleagues gave potted tomato plants one of three treatments: mineral fertiliser, urine and wood ash, urine only, and no fertiliser. Urine is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Yields for plants fertilised with urine quadrupled and matched those of mineral-fertilised plants. The urine-fertilised tomatoes also contained more protein and were safe for human consumption.

Pradhan says that the method is a free alternative to expensive mineral fertiliser, which is also not easily available in remote or hilly areas. Pradhan also believes that the idea could improve sanitation by incentivising toilet-building.

A pilot programme based on the research will be launched in Nepal in November [2009] , says Pradhan.

But Håkan Jönsson, eco-agriculture and sanitation system technology expert at the Stockholm Environment Institute in Sweden, told SciDev.Net: “The amount [of urine] that can be collected from a person or a family is fairly small (equivalent to about two bags of fertiliser per year for a west African family).[The technique] is of great value to a subsistence farmer but does not suffice for even a medium-scale cash-crop farm.”

He adds that to fertilise larger areas, many urine-diverting toilets would have to be linked up to a good transportation system.

There are also cultural issues. In most cultures, Jönsson says, faeces are considered impure and urine is viewed in a similar way, even though the hygiene risk associated with it is minimal.

Pradhan says that studies will be done to assess how acceptable the idea is in different cultures. His team will also investigate ways of decontaminating any faecal matter in urine collected from a toilet using a jerry can.

He adds: “For large-scale implementation of this idea, we are trying to find different methods to reduce the volume of the urine in economic way, without losing the nutrients”.

Link to full article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry [750kb]

Source: Wagdy Sawahel, SciDev.net, 09 Sep 2009

Nepal: water, santation rights

Experts: Water, sanitation a must

KATHMANDU, Aug 22 – Experts on Friday appealed to the government to establish water and sanitation as fundamental rights in the new constitution. They want a high-level political statement that water and sanitation are also he government’s priorities.

At the current rate of progress, the government will miss its ambitious target of providing water and sanitation to all by 2017. “There is need for urgent action to meet the target in the given time,” said Rabin Lal Shrestha, research and advocacy manager at WaterAid in Nepal.

According to Basanta Adhikari, legal expert, incorporation of water and sanitation as constitutional rights will help enforce a legal framework and take the government towards progressive realisation of the goal of providing safe water and sanitation to all.

At the same time, constitutional reorganisation will benefit citizens enabling them to claim their fundamental rights.

Adhikari said, the country has already signed different international conventions on water and sanitation. It however lags behind in the implementation aspects. Among countries that have already recognised water and sanitation as constitutional rights are Bangladesh, South Africa, Honduras, Algeria and Kenya, among others.

According to a report of WaterAid in Nepal, about 14.2 million people do not have access to sanitation and 7.1 million lack access to safe drinking water in Nepal.

Meanwhile, more than 50 percent population without sanitation and almost two thirds of the population without safe drinking water live in the Tarai, a region that lacks infrastructure and services to access to water and sanitation.

The population of Nepal is expected to grow to 31 million by 2015, much of the increase will be in urban areas, which are already severely water stressed. With increasing population, the challenges faced by the government in providing water and sanitation facilities to the increasing population will become greater.

The report further states that diseases caused by inadequate access to water and sanitation are responsible for 10,500 child deaths in Nepal each year.

Source – http://www.ekantipur.com/kolnews.php?&nid=210889

Nepal, Kathmandu: lack of public toilets big problem for communters

Besides the public transport mayhem, the shortage of public rest rooms has become the single biggest problem for commuters in the capital Kathmandu.

Geeta Gautam, a first year student of Green Tara College of Health Science, usually avoids drinking water before leaving the house. The reason? Finding an appropriate public rest room to empty her bladder is next to impossible. “Until it starts to get into my head, I don’t go to the public rest room,” says Gautam. But when she does, she faces the inevitable unpleasant smell and conditions of the rest room, often leaving her nauseated.

A street vendor begging anonymity, reports, “How can a person like me, who has to save every single penny to run my household, pay Rs. 3 just to pee! Given no other option, he does his business behind the bushes or discreetly in an alley. In such, drinking water never comes to mind unless he is dehydrated.

Cutting back on water intake or holding back on urination because there are no clean and affordable public toilets nearby, can in both cases cause health problems, like kidney failure and urinary tract infections, respectively.

There are only 33 public rest rooms (including those in business complexes such as Bishal Bazaar) to cater to the Kathmandu Valley’s 3,000,000-strong population. Even these latrines contain no facilities for children and physically-challenged. Two restrooms in Kuleshwor and Boudha are out of order, while places such as Durbar Marg and Thamel, two of Kathmandu’s biggest tourist hubs, have no public restrooms at all.

[...] The Kathmandu Muncipal Council (KMC) is not entirely to blame. ‘As there are no free spaces available in busy areas such as Putalisadak, building restrooms is impossible. To make such places more people-friendly we are in the pipeline to install mobile restrooms,” says Chief of Environment Management Department at KMC Rabin Man Shrestha.

[...] A recent study conducted by the Green Youth Network, an informal network of environmental science students, on eleven different public restrooms (excluding mall and mobile restrooms), show 90% of public rest rooms operated under the KMC are cleaned three times a day. The general public consistently lists “no proper sanitation measures used in the public lavatory” among its top concerns.
But, according to research, 18% of public rest rooms in the Valley do not have a water supply and 55% use tainted water. Only 45% provide soap.

[...] Beside the low priority given by the government to public rest rooms, the public plays its part in adding to deteriorating conditions of such common property. Complaints on how irresponsible the public is when it comes to public rest rooms come from operators and caretakers. Users not paying the charge, dumping rubbish in the pans, thereby blocking toilet function, and spitting wherever they like tops their list of grievances.

The same research shows that the number of men who visit public rest rooms is higher than women. An average of 12-38 women visit the public lavatory per day compared with 45-140 men. The reason for this may be the lack of women-friendly rest rooms in the Valley. Male and female rest rooms usually have the same entrance, doors have holes and lack proper ventilation.

A busiest public rest room in Ratnapark has several non-functioning doors in the ladies’ rest rooms and also lack proper flush systems. Ajay Deuja, a money collector in this rest room wears a facemask to avoid the foul smell. “The rest room is much cleaner than it is used to be couple of years back,” says Deuja.
To ensure proper function and sanitation management, the KMC sends staff to public rest rooms for thorough examinations, according to Rabin Man Shrestha. Some rest rooms are also leased to private sectors or individuals as it has been found that leased public latrines are better managed in terms of sanitation and hygiene. “A public restroom is much cleaner in places like the one in Ratnapark, which has other services such as hair-cutting salons and juice shops,” says Shrestha.

Rest rooms in some shopping centers, such as Kathmandu Mall, are a haven for shoppers as they are comparatively cleaner and women-friendly. The newest addition is the mobile rest room which has people thronging in it and is currently installed in Basantapur Durbar Square. But there have been complaints of its odd location.

In addition to the above complaints is the high charge to use the public rest rooms. Public rest rooms charge Rs. 3 to urinate and Rs. 5 to excrete. However, Rabin Man Shrestha claims the situation to be different. “The official rate for public comfort rooms is Rs. 2 and Rs. 3 respectively, according to the nature of use,” adds Shrestha. “Recently a warning notice has been circulated to one of the rest rooms near Ratnapark which allegedly charged more than the actual rate.”

Source: Republica / NGO Forum, 26 Jun 2009

Nepal, Dailekh: toilets replace ‘Chhaupadi’ (menstruation) sheds

Residents in Sihasain of Dailekh are busy constructing toilets by destroying the cowsheds used by menstruating women following the tradition of ‘Chhaupadi’. Residents of Sihasain VDC-2 have destroyed 45 such cowsheds and replaced them with toilets.

As per the tradition, the women in Dailekh have been compelled to stay in cowsheds for eight days during menstruation eating only plain ‘roti’.

The Rural Water Resource Management Project supported has helped the villagers construct toilets, taps and juthelnas (place for cleaning dishes and utensils) in all nine wards of the remote Sihasain VDC. .

Source: Naya Patrika / NGO Forum, 26 Jun 2009