Toilet humour is serious business [video]

An inspirational (and funny) TEDx talk on the impact of school sanitation on girls in India.

Told by Australian busnessman, Mark Balla whose visit to the world’s largest slum Dharavi changed his life and turned him into a “toilet warrior”.

Mark is the Founder and Director of Community Engagement at We Can’t Wait.

Yes, hygiene and school enrolment are directly proportional

In Bangladesh, the lack of separate latrines for girls and menstrual hygiene facilities in secondary schools are major factors in the disproportionate rate of absence and dropout of adolescent girls.

 Sabrina Shahidullah

A study undertaken in Bangladesh revealed an 11 per cent increase in girls’ enrolment mainly due to the provision of sanitary toilets.” –Technical paper series/IRC

In Bangladesh the standard number of toilets in schools has been set as a minimum of one toilet for every 60 students. However, this is far from being achieved. The infographic below shows that on average, schools in Bangladesh have half the number of toilets required. However, although 94 per cent of schools have latrines within the compound, a large number remain unusable because they are dirty or broken.

Source: UNICEF WASH for school children South Asia Report, 2012

Reinvent the Toilet Fair: India – what’s next?

Several technologies displayed at the Reinvent the Toilet Fair: India “will be field tested in coming months in cities across India and Africa”, writes Doulaye Koné in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) blog “Impatient Optimists”.

These include reinvented toilet technologies, pit latrine and septic tank emptying technologies, as well as sludge-to-energy processing technologies. Some of the participants at the fair in New Delhi, like the President of the Fecal Sludge Emptying Association from Senegal, wanted to buy some of the technologies on display on the spot. He was very disappointed to learn that we still need to do additional testing to validate their performances before commercialization but we were thrilled about his excitement.

Beside the field testing, the BMGF has announced a collaboration agreement with the South African government on sanitation innovation solutions. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has committed ZAR 30 million (US$ 2.7 million) to test and promote toilet technologies being developed by BMGF grantees in schools and rural communities in South Africa. BMGF is contributing US$ 1 million to support the testing of technologies selected. South Africa’s Water Research Commission is the implementing agency.

“In terms of rural school sanitation, the technologies will be demonstrated in the Cofimvaba district in the Eastern Cape as part of the Technology for Rural Education Development project,” the department said. “The technologies will also be demonstrated in the 23 district municipalities that have been identified by the government as critical in terms of service delivery.”

More information on BMGF sanitation grantees is avaialable on SuSanA.org.

Source:

• Doulaye Koné , What Happened at the “Reinvent the Toilet Fair: India” and What’s Next?, Impatient Optimists, 11 Apr 2004
• South Africa, Gates Foundation to ‘reinvent the toilet’, SouthAfrica.info, 28 Mar 2014

 

SACOSAN-V – South Asian Conference on Sanitation, 11-13 November 2013, Kathmandu, Nepal

Heads of delegation from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will join other delegates from government, UN agencies, civil society and private sector to once again discuss the “biggest sanitation challenge in the world”.

There are around 700 million South Asians who still defecate in the open. At SACOSAN-IV held in April 2011 in Sri Lanka, South Asian ministers promised to set up a national body in each country to “coordinate sanitation and hygiene, involving all stakeholders”.

SACOSAN-V is being organised by the Nepal Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD), Department of Water Supply and Sewerage (DWSS).

The SACOSAN-V theme is: “Sanitation for All : All for Sanitation”.

Programme outline: Public Opening (10 November), Meeting of Ministers, Technical focus sessions, Plenaries, Public sessions, Panel discussions, Declarations, Exhibitions, Field visits (14 November).

Session topics (Download Concept Paper):

Topic	Lead Country	Partner involved
Sanitation and Health	Afghanistan	UNICEF
Community Wide Sanitation and Sustainability	Bangladesh	WSP
School Sanitation	Bhutan	WHO
Reaching the Unreached	India	FANSA
Sanitation Technology and Marketing	Maldives	WHO
Media Advocacy and Sanitation	Nepal	WaterAid
Urban Sanitation	Pakistan	WaterAid
Knowledge Management and Networking	Sri Lanka	UNICEF

For more information go to: www.sacosanv.gov.np

6 years of school WASH research have come together!

SWASH+ is an action-research and advocacy project focused on increasing the scale, impact and sustainability of school water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions in Kenya. Since September 2006, SWASH+ has worked in 185 primary schools in four districts in Nyanza Province, Kenya to identify challenges and analyse innovative solutions for sustaining school WASH. The project’s randomized controlled trials and numerous sub-studies have resulted in a compendium of journal articles, research reports, one-page research summaries, stories from the field, photo essays and videos now available on the new SWASH+ website.

Advocacy-for-policy-change focus

From day one the project was designed with a strong advocacy-for-policy-change focus in order to contribute to successful implementation of school WASH throughout Kenya. SWASH+ research directly contributed to the Kenya’s Ministry of Education decision to double funding for school WASH (US$ 840,000/year) with potentially more to come. SWASH+ Research also helped bring national attention to the menstrual hygiene needs of school-aged girls in Kenya, resulting in a government allocation of US$ 3.4 million for sanitary pads for school girls this year.

Now the launch of the new website brings the voices of students, teachers, staff and government officials to a global audience along with years of research and lessons learned.

Partners

The partners that form the SWASH+ consortium are CARE, Emory University, the Great Lakes University of Kisumu, the Government of Kenya, and Water.org. SWASH+ is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Water Challenge. The new website is created and hosted by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.

India’s sanitation emergency – Al Jazeera

New Delhi promised to build hundreds of public toilets for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Only 9 were built, and none of them are functioning. This short report from Al Jazeera’s Sohail Rahman highlights the fact that over 50 per cent of Indians have no access to clean toilets. It focuses on the lack of facilities in India’s growing cities and in schools. The report features rural development minister Jairam Ramesh, the inevitable Bindeshwar Pathak of Sulabh International and UNICEF India’s Suzanne Coates.

HSBC launches US$ 100 million water and sanitation partnership with WaterAid, WWF and Earthwatch

British multinational bank HSBC has launched a new US$ 100 million, five year partnership with WaterAid, WWF and the Earthwatch Institute. The HSBC Water Programme will bring safe water and improved sanitation to over a million people; tackle water risks in river basins; and raise awareness about the global water challenge.

The programme is backed-up by report [1] commissioned by HSBC, which warns that the predicted high-growth rate in several of the world’s most populous river basins may not materialise because of  their unsustainable water consumption . The report also highlights “the powerful economic rationale for improving access to freshwater and sanitation, at a time when total aid for water access and sanitation has actually declined”.

Nepal – Talking about menstruation

KATHMANDU, Sept 25: Nepal has come a long way in recent history in terms of gender equality, but if there is one issue that is still under a silent veil its menstruation. The taboos and lack of information regarding the monthly bleedings is slowly being addressed in schools.

“In Nepal, the main issue is embarrassment and lack of information about how to take care of your menstruation in a healthy and hygienic way,” says Anna Guiney, project officer of Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) under UNICEF.

The silence and embarrassment goes hand in hand with feelings of being dirty and impure and transcends school and life at home. In retelling her experience, 24 year old Shreejana Bajracharya says, “My mom didn’t teach me anything. I’m the oldest daughter in the family and when I first got my period I was scared.”

Despite having older female cousins, Shreejana was in no way informed about what was happening to her body and felt alone in her experience. “My mom didn’t explain it properly, if my younger sisters saw I had blood on my clothes my mother didn’t explain it to them either. I felt like something was wrong with me and I was the only one going through it.”

WEDC – Inclusive design of school latrines

Briefing Note 1: Inclusive design of school latrines – how much does it cost and who benefits? WEDC, July 2011.

Download Full-text (pdf)

WEDC research shows that the additional cost of making a school latrine accessible is less than 3% of the overall costs of the latrine.

• The most cost-effective way to improve access for children with disabilities is to incorporate accessibility into the design from the outset (inclusive design) rather than making expensive changes later.
• Inclusive design means a user-friendly, child-friendly design, which benefits all users, including adolescent girls, small children, and children who are sick.
• However well designed the latrine, other factors such as location, distance and approach path affect accessibility and need to be part of planning and design.

Bangladesh: BRAC video shows importance of school sanitation for girls

This new 9 minute video shows how BRAC is addressing high absenteeism rates among female students through a water, sanitation and hygiene programme in nearly 3,000 schools across rural Bangladesh. The programme includes menstrual hygiene facilties.

[Female students] have expressed that something so simple like as a sanitary latrine can change their entire educational experience.

The video was directed and edited by Sara Liza Baumann of Old Fan Films.