Ecological Sanitation in post-earthquake Haiti

Vincent is showing his clean hands. Photo: Hadas

Just two years ago the city of Port-au-Prince collapsed. In a matter of minutes hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives as this proud city crumbled to the ground. In remembrance and mourning, we ask that you take a moment of silence to honor the dead and share the suffering of more than 500,000 people who remain homeless in Haiti’s capital.

There are many reasons to despair when remembering the tragedy that took place two years ago and the terrible suffering that continues today. But on the second anniversary of the earthquake that has brought so many of us together on a common mission to help Haiti, we want to share with you a story of hope. The story starts in Parc Izmery.

In those awful first days after the earthquake, when SOIL staff drove our old pickup truck down from Cap-Haitien, overflowing with the emergency medical and food supplies that your donations helped us buy, we moved into the yard behind the Matthew 25 Guest House, next door to the Parc Izmery soccer field. During those awful first days, when aftershocks were still shaking our almost broken hearts, we watched Parc Izmery turned into an emergency field hospital with volunteer medical teams from around the world conducting lifesaving surgeries on Matthew 25’s dining room table and providing ongoing medical care to the people moving into tents crowded together in the hot sun on the former soccer field.

Everyone has a story to tell

Before starting the story of our community, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Chedorlaomer Villa I am 34 years old, and  live in The Maelstrom, small town of Pance, Cali, Colombia.  I work as plumber and I am responsible for carrying out maintenance at the drinking water plant (PTAP) and the wastewater treatment plant (PTARD). We are a privileged community in that today we have drinking water and a system of to process wastewater, perhaps the oldest such system in the municipality.

Back to the history, our district, “La Vorágine”,  was founded by Mr. Nicolas Felipe Mejía in the year of 1943 and is one of the 13 districts forming the small town of Pance, where the crystal and cold water of the river attract many foreign and Colombian tourists at weekends or in the holiday season.

Vereda La Vorágine

This district was originally called La Vega (the fertile lowland).  The district’s economy was based around two coal mines.  At one time only a dusty bridle path  linked La Vorágine with Cali. It was only in the 1950s that the highway was built.  Since the 1960s when tourism started to rise, La Voragina has been a tourist destination.

Construction of the aqueduct

With the increase in tourism, the need to seek other sources to supply the community with water increased and the water from the river was of very poor quality.  In 1980 the Municipal Public Department of Health (SSPM) started a project to improve this situation.

Nepal: EcoSan toilet promotional campaign spreads in Nagarkot

Ms. Nanu Maiya Giri, principal of Chuna Devi Lower Secondary School appreciates the effort of her community people proudly. She claims that it’s their dedication that turned the catchment area of school into a total sanitation zone. According to her, after prolonged dedication the Magar tole, Danda Gaunt tole, Kuwa Pani tole, Ghising tole and Gairi Gaun of Nagarkot Village Development Committee (VDC) were declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) on 25 December, 2010 in Nagarkot.

Ms. Nanu Maiya Giri sharing her expeteince

Earlier to this declaration, villagers were not aware on health and hygiene, and open defecation used to be rampant. After participating in a training programme on School Led Total Sanitation (SLTS), organized by Department of Water Supply and Sewerage (DWSS) and UN Habitat, Nanu Maiya realized the importance of toilet in the surrounding communities of Chuna Devi School. She, thus, shared the knowledge gained from the training with other teaching staffs and her students at school, who later supported her in driving SLTS campaign in and around the school catchment.

Celebrating community management of water in Cochabamba

We have just celebrated four years of community management of our water supply in this part of Cochabamba. It is a celebration not of perfection but of hard work; not a story with a happy ending, but a story where we meet the continual challenges.

Lack of water is a constant problem in the Southern zone of Cochabamba since the water network from the public company Semapa does not reach us.  We could perhaps have managed to attract a project to bring us water supply, but it would take a long time and we feared that we would be disregarded by the authorities. So we followed the path that some neighbours have taken to organise themselves and form a water committee to tackle the lack of drinking water.

Our Community Association for Drinking Water and Sanitation was formed on April 22 2007, as a public service community association with charitable status. Its primary purpose is to administrate, operate and maintain the drinking water system and keep it clean. This association has managed to supply water to the districts between the rivers, Trafalgar, Santa Fe and part of Bello Horizonte (Villa Payer-District 14), about 45 minutes bus ride from the city centre.

To solve the problems in my community we needed to clear the route dig, clean and put the whole thing together. This community effort was the only way to obtain good results.