Kiribati’s North Tarawa declared first open defecation free island in the Pacific

Everyone on North Tarawa now has access to improved sanitation. Photo: ABC Radio Australia / UNICEF Pacific.

North Tarawa in Kiribati is the first island in the Pacific to be declared open defecation free, thanks to the “Kiriwatsan I Project”. The Ministry of Public Works is implementing this project with technical support from UNICEF and funding from the European Union.

North Tarawa is made up of a string of islets with a combined population of 6,102 (2010) and a land area of 15.26 sq.km.  Previously about 64 per cent of people used the beaches and mangroves for defecation and dumping their rubbish.

UNICEF spokeswoman Nuzhat Shahzadi says that diarrhoeal diseases cause 15 per cent of the deaths of children under five in Kiribati.

In March 2013, North Tarawa adopted the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach following a training of trainers course conducted by Dr Kamal Kar. The CLTS pioneer wrote that he had convinced Kiribati President Anote Tong to set December 2015 as the target date for the whole nation to become open defecation free.

The villagers of North Tarawa dig shallow pits and use local materials like brick and coconut leaves to build the toilet superstructure. They keep water and soap in one corner. After using the toilet, the villagers sprinkle ash to stop the smell and flies getting in, and then keep it covered.

Ms Shahzadi said that the women and girls were very happy that no longer have to go out on the beach in the middle of the night if they need to use the toilet.

Related web sites:

• IDS – Community-Led Total Sanitation
• CLTS Foundation
• IRC – Pan-Africa Programme (CLTS/SLTS/ULTS programme)
• SuSanA Forum – CLTS

Source: UNICEF, 11 May 2013 ; Radio New Zealand International, 13 May 2013 ; ABC Radio Australia, 14 May 2013

India, Bihar: rapes ’caused by lack of toilets’

Map showing frequency & severity of violence against
women in Bhalswa slum, Delhi. Shirley Lennon/SHARE.

The lack of safe toilets for women and girls is often linked to an increased risk of sexual harassment and rape. Earlier studies [1] from Kenya, Uganda and India, and now a recent BBC news item are some of the few sources to actually quantify this risk.

Senior police official Arvind Pandey from the Indian state of Bihar told the BBC that 400 women would have “escaped” rape in 2012 if they had toilets in their homes. The rapes take place when women go outside to defecate early in the morning and late evening. These “sanitation-related” rapes make up nearly half of the more than 870 cases of rape in Bihar in 2012.

The BBC news item lists three specific cases:

• On 5 May, an 11-year-old girl was raped in Mai village in Jehanabad district when she was going to the field at night
• On 28 April, a young girl was abducted and raped when she had gone out to defecate in an open field in Kalapur village in Naubatpur, 35km (21 miles) from the state capital, Patna
• On 24 April, another girl was raped in similar circumstances on a farm in Chaunniya village in Sheikhpura district. She told the police that two villagers had followed and raped her. One of them has been arrested

In Bihar , 75.8% of homes have no toilet facilities (Census 2011). Some 49% of the households without a toilet wanted one for “safety and security” for women and children, according to a study by Population Service International (PSI),   Monitor Deloitte and Water for People.

[1] Heise, L., 2013. Danger, disgust and indignity : women’s perception of sanitation in informal settlements. Powerpoint presented at “Making connections: Women, sanitation and health”, 29 April 2013, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Video version available at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS9ulpJqh7s

Related news:

• Request for Proposals: The effects of poor sanitation on women and girls in India, Sanitation Updates, 07 Mar 2013
• India, Delhi: how sexual violence against women is linked to water and sanitation, E-Source, 27 Mar 2012

Source: Amarnath Tewary, BBC, 09 May 2013

Sri Lanka: new partnership tackles fecal sludge management

Septage disposal. Sri Lanka/Nuwara Eliya sanitation project, 2008, Photo: Flickr/USAID.

An international research institute is helping the government of Sri Lanka to improve septage management in the country.

On 8 May 2013, the Colombo-based International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Ministry of Water Supply and Drainage signed a Memorandum of Understanding that provides a collaborative framework for sustainable septage management in Sri Lanka.

IWMI will contribute research data for the drafting of a septage management component of the national sanitation policy. The Ministry will lead implementation of the policy through an advisory committee headed by Minister Dinesh Gunawardena.

Only about 3% of Sri Lankans have a sewerage connection while the rest rely on latrines and septic tanks for sanitation. Safe disposal of septage (fecal sludge) is a problem because of a lack of treatment facilities in large parts of the country.

IWMI is studying a new approach in cities around the world, which treats the sludge so that it can be safely reused as agricultural fertiliser. With the rising costs of imported fertiliser, such an approach would not only benefit farmers but also allow better sanitation and environmental protection for all.

Related news:

• The business of the honey-suckers in Bengaluru (India), E-Source, 27 Sep 2012
• WASHplus Weekly: Focus on Fecal Sludge Management, Sanitation Updates, 30 Nov 2012

Related web sites:

• IWMI - Resource Recovery and Re-use
• Ministry of Water Supply and Drainage
• SuSanA - WG 5 – Food security and productive sanitation systems and Library – Fecal sludge management

 Source: IWMI, 8 May 2013

India, New Delhi: garbage trucks to be fitted with GPS and radio devices

Reblogged from Sanitation Updates:

Big brother will soon be watching over garbage truck drivers in East Delhi once the local municipal corporation installs an electronic tracking system. The East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) plans to install global positioning system (GPS) and radio frequency identification devices (RFID) in its garbage trucks.

This will enable the EDMC to track the garbage trucks movements and monitor their work performance.

Read more… 116 more words

BRAC WASH offers to help half a million Indian imams promote hygiene

Reblogged from Sanitation Updates:

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On WaterCouch.tv, Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp shares a practical example of international water cooperation that emerged during the 2013 World Water Day celebrations in The Hague, The Netherlands. In one of the sessions, BRAC WASH programme director Dr Babar Kabir explained that his programme had trained 18,000 imams in Bangladesh to include hygiene messages in their Friday prayers (see Kabir, 2010).

Read more… 125 more words

Water and sanitation crusader killed in Karachi attack

Reblogged from Sanitation Updates:

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Perveen Rahman, director of the Orangi Pilot Project Research and Training Institute (OPP-RTI), was shot dead in Karachi, Pakistan, on Wednesday 13 March 2013. The internationally acclaimed and widely replicated project that she led, succeeded in bringing low-cost sanitation to Karachi's Orangi squatter community of 1 million people.

Ms Rahman's associates believe her death was linked to her work on exposing Karachi's…

Read more… 432 more words

Participatory monitoring in the BRAC WASH II programme in Bangladesh

“What is good about the monitoring system that we are using is that it is participatory so that respondents also get knowledge”, says Senior Sector Specialist Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Mahjabeen Ahmed of the BRAC WASH II Programme. Ms Ahmed is one of the 5,000 programme workers who are supporting BRAC WASH II in Bangladesh. From 11 to 15 March 2013 she was in The Hague, The Netherlands, for a programme workshop.

Armed with smart phones, 30 teams consisting of one male and one female staff member have been collecting WASH data in sample areas of the BRAC WASH programme. Each team gets 6 days training in QIS – the Qualitative Information System, a participatory method for capturing and quantifying respondents’ situation regarding WASH issues. The BRAC monitoring teams visit households, village WASH committees, schools and rural sanitation centres.