December 2016 update

Christmas 2016 WASH update

This year was year of successes and disappointments in my WASH (safe WAter, Sanitation, & Hygiene) efforts.   In India, out WASH promotion campaign was very successful, but our indigenous promoters proved unwilling to deal with sanitation.  In Uganda, the LadderLoo worked as advertised (no flies, no odor, not gross) and the users provided very positive feedback like “I will install my own LadderLoo when I return to my home.”  A cholera epidemic was raging while I was here.  Over 500 died in the vicinity in just the first 6 weeks of 2016.  We could have solved that with the LadderLoo, but our indigenous partner was not  truly committed to testing or teaching holistic WASH.  Now we are negotiating with some potential new partners for 2017.

Digging a pit for the first LadderLoo in India

I learned a key lesson that I had NEVER heard mentioned in all my WASH training:  Poor farmers who are receptive to safe sanitation are often renters who are at the mercy of their landlords who may not allow their renters to install a latrine.  Often the landlords selfishly want to repress their renters or to prevent Christian NGO’s from having influence.

An even more important lesson continues to be overlooked by most NGO’s involved with sanitation:  MOST LATRINES LABELED TO BE "COMPOSTING” PUT THEIR USERS AT RISK OF PATHOGENIC WORM INFECTION.  Composting is aerobic (oxygenated) and achieves temperatures of 130 to 160 F which kill even resistant helminth eggs. 

·      Pathogenic worms (helminths) and their eggs can survive for years in burial conditions.

·      This has important consequences. WHO estimates about 2 billion people are infected by helminths. 

·      Instructions for some latrines like the Fossa Alterna and the ArborLoo state that “composted” sewage that has resided in a pit for a year is safe to dig up for use as fertilizer.   This is not true much of the time, because a pit is a low temperature anaerobic (no oxygen) environment. Therefore handling “compost” can expose people to parasitic worms.  The only way latrine contents are composted is by getting air to them – often by turning the contents with a pitchfork.

Holistic WASH in India

In May 2016,  we of Engineering for Hope (EFH) began a 1 year (at least) project to bring holistic WASH to India.   In the world's largest democracy,  769 million of its 1.2 billion people don't have access to improved sanitation.   Over half the population lives on less than $2/day and 14% of the rural population have no latrine.

The toilets they have in the big city where we stayed flush untreated to a large lake that smells like a sewer.  Beset with a drought, anal washing is the norm.   This is a particular travesty for rural people:  it is a hygiene issue for people with no soap; it doubles the sewage volume; and, it contaminates limited water supplies. Further, it precludes the use of conventional, inexpensive latrines like pit latrines.   Not only that, but it is a country with widespread excess fluorine, arsenic, and nitrates in their dwindling ground water supplies. 

We  probably can't change the anal washing issue, but we think we have inexpensive sanitation and safe water solutions for rural people.   However, in the week we spent in  country it became clear that there is a lot of promotion needed before we let them "discover" the solutions to their problems..  (see picture of a member of our partner team already teaching "disease paths" in a rural village.)  If that isn't enough to keep EFH busy, it appears we will start up a similar project in Indonesia later this year   We'd love for some NGO partners  or volunteers to step up and join with us on these projects.   We could use help in developing curriculum and in managing the project from the USA as well as future trip participation.