Tag Archives: sanitation

World Toilet Day: Give a Crap

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Ugandan biogas toilet. Photo by Dero Sanford.

Happy World Toilet Day, everyone.

Wondering why there’s a day for toilets (I mean, there’s a day for everything, right?) around the world? I’ll let the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation explain that one. For those of us who take toilets for granted, it’s hard to believe that 2.6 BILLION people poop on the ground because they don’t have any other place to go.

Although we’re not exactly The Toilet People, in many of our projects, sanitation and hygiene are key objectives for the community. We include these topics as part of the training we provide, where needed. In our biogas projects in Uganda, we help participants build composting toilets that connect to their biogas units, helping them contain and then make the most of their family’s waste products.

I took this picture of one of the Ranch’s
composting toilets (a “squatty potty,”
if you will) during my last stay in the
Global Village.

Two of our Learning Centers, Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas, and Overlook Farm in Rutland, Massachusetts, have composting toilets on their campuses to both educate about toilet conditions around the world and put the compost to use on the growing trees.

So dig in to World Toilet Day and see how you can help make the world a cleaner, healthier place. And while you’re at it, try giving a crap this holiday season.

Lelo Bwacha: An Awakening in Zambia

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by Marleen New, Director of Corporate and Foundation Relations

 
A recurring theme on our trip to Zambia, I’ve found, is how such simple ideas, built from inexpensive and everyday items, can make a world of difference. 

The local Bemba phrase “Lelo Bwacha” when translated literally means “dawn” or “morning,” but in Zambia, it is used to describe an awakening, or “Our eyes have been opened” and “We didn’t know such simple things could change a life.” We heard this over and over, time and again, and it certainly seemed to resonate with what we were seeing and experiencing.
Zambian project participant showing how the Tippy-Tap system works.

 Consider the Tippy-Tap. As mentioned in the previous post, having a hand-washing facility convenient and close by the latrine improves hygiene.

Simple Tippy-Tap method

In its simplest form, this could be achieved by providing a plastic jug filled with water. If you drill a small hole close to the bottom of the jug and plug the hole with a stick, you don’t even have to touch the jug to wash your hands. Just remove the twig, wash your hands under the running water and stick the twig back in to stop the flow. Simple.

The Tippy-Tap takes this idea a step further and completely removes the necessity of handling the container.  The jug is suspended by a rope slung over a branch, which is then tied to a stick on the ground.  Stepping on the stick tilts the jug so water can flow to wash your hands. It’s hard to explain but the pictures can demonstrate much better than words.
Considering the incredibly high rate of water-borne diseases, (60 percent of our targeted community members have experienced diarrhea at least once in the last three months) this alone could make a big difference.

Today we visited some families that I had met nine months ago when I came with Elanco staff to see what was then a future project area. During that visit, we met a family that had begun to build a barn—just in case they were selected to receive animals once the project began. Imagine building an entire barn, just in the slim chance you might receive an animal. We decided the phrase “The Audacity of Hope” applied quite well to this farmer! When we returned today we found the barn completed, as well as a bigger, stronger, more impressive barn right next to it. I asked why the second barn and was told — since the barn was built before any Heifer training had taken place– the knowledge and expertise needed to construct a facility strong enough to hold a 500-pound animal hadn’t been utilized. No worries, the farmer told us, he would just use his first structure for storage and smaller animals that he planned to purchase one day. But he was mighty proud of his new one.  We could only imagine the hard work required to build it. It was amazingly strong and built using only his hands—no machinery—and not one nail!
Lelo Bwacha indeed!
Tomorrow we participate in the next handover ceremony of 42 draft cattle to 20 more families!

World Water Day: Let’s Unite for Clean Water

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Written in collaboration by Brooke Edwards and Maegan Clark

In 1992, the UN designated March 22 of each year as World Water Day. Although Heifer International’s focus is on ending hunger and poverty, clean water (for people and livestock) is absolutely essential for our project families and communities to thrive. In observance of this year’s World Water Day, we thought we would shine a light on how water plays an important part of our work all over the world and give you a few ways you can help bring safe drinking water to the world’s poor.

In many of our project communities, the lack of access to clean potable water is one of the most critical challenges. Many communities depend on unsafe water from unprotected shallow wells or rivers. Lack of access to water is a threat to the livelihood of a community in many ways. Inadequate access to water negatively affects the productivity of livestock and crops, and unsafe drinking water is a health hazard to both communities and animals. It is primarily the responsibility of women and girls to fetch water for household and animal use, often walking long distances in harsh conditions. Water scarcity is believed, for this reason, to affect the enrollment rates as well as educational performance of girls.


(Please note that there is no audio due to the high winds.Video by Geoff Oliver Bugbee)


In this video you’ll see Fatou Dione walking in oven-hot wind churning with dust to fetch water for her husband and four children. It’s the dry season in her village of Diarrere in Senegal, and both water and food are running low. At the time this video was shot, they were eagerly anticipating the rains the following month.


To address water scarcity in our project communities when needed, Heifer partners with organizations specializing in water projects to bring deep-water wells and pumps to the area. Consistent with our methodology of helping families and communities become more self-reliant, local people are trained to maintain the wells with locally available resources. And to ensure the sustainability of the boreholes, water management committees are established and trained.
Improved sanitation is also crucial for our projects. In Uganda, Heifer participants are using a clever hand-washing station called a Tippy Tap. It allows you to wash your hands without touching anything in the process. 
Tippy Tap System
Image from www.cdc.gov

These really make sense when running water isn’t available. Much better than a bucket, that’s for certain. We all know hand washing is a key way to stop the spread of many diseases. In a country like Uganda, which has a life expectancy of 52.98 years (yes, in large part a result of HIV/AIDS), avoiding disease like bacterial diarrhea is of the utmost importance.



The Tippy Tap is a cheap device made of locally available materials. It was initiated by Heifer Uganda at this farm and others as one way of ensuring that family members and their visitors wash their hands with soap each time they use the pit latrine. In so doing, the possibility of spreading disease is minimized.


So what can you do to help?

  1. Help fund our Building a Sustainable Way of Life Project in Peru, which will improve community wells to ensure the availability and quality of water in wet years and dry.
  2. Team up with US-based groups who are calling for increased commitments by the US government to help increase access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation for millions around the world.
  3. Find and attend an event near you.
  4. Visit a local restaurant participating this week in UNICEF’s Tap Project, and pay a $1 (or more!) donation for otherwise free tap water.

    For more information about World Water Day please visit http://www.worldwaterday.org/ and http://oneweekforwater.org/. 


Appropriate Technology Keeps Your Hands Clean

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I know I seem to keep harping on about biogas (and there’s more to come!), but that’s not the only form of appropriate technology we saw in Uganda. Here’s a clever hand-washing station on a farm we visited. It’s called a Tippy Tap, and it allows you to wash your hands without touching anything in the process.

We saw a couple of these on our trip, and they really make sense when running water isn’t available. Much better than a bucket, that’s for certain. We all know hand washing is a key way to stop the spread of many diseases. In a country like Uganda, which has a life expectancy of 52.98 years (yes, in large part a result of HIV/AIDS), avoiding disease like bacterial diarrhea is of the utmost importance.
Under Heifer Uganda’s holistic farmer training curriculum, families participate in a course on home hygiene. Farmers are trained to keep their homesteads clean and tidy and to ensure reasonable hygiene and sanitation. This practice goes on in many of Heifer’s projects worldwide.
The Tippy Tap is a local, cheap device that is affordable by all families. It was initiated by Heifer Uganda at this farm and others as one way of ensuring that family members and their visitors wash their hands with soap each time they use the pit latrine. In so doing, the possibility of spreading disease is minimized. The training and demonstration on how to make and use the Tippy Tap is done at one participant farmer’s home, and thereafter each participant goes back home and makes one for the family.
The water used is clean and safe, drawn from individual roof water tanks–simple water harvesting techniques introduced to families by Heifer Uganda. When available, community protected wells, communal boreholes, natural springs and sometimes piped water may be the family’s water source. The water sources, in most cases, are within walkable distances, and families ensure that the container has water in it at all times.