Sustainable technology in action

Latrines for life

Priest Mergeta Kelemework helps Asfaw Yitbarak to build a new latrine for his family.

Credit: WaterAid / Caroline Penn

Priest Mergeta Kelemework is a member of the water and sanitation committee in Chandeba, Ethiopia. He was one of the first people in the area to build a ventilated improved pit latrine and he is now actively encouraging others to build them too. He is pictured helping Asfaw Yitbarak to build a new latrine for his family.

To help promote latrines Mergeta proudly shows off his latrine which is made from local materials. It has a bamboo ventilator coated with traditional dung plaster, a screen of dried maize stalks and a thatch roof.

When asked why he wanted a latrine he answered "For my life. If I am not healthy then my life will not be productive". Asfaw added that 20 latrines had already been built in the area. "So many people are asking for latrines, people hear about it in other villages, they come and look at the Chandeba latrines and leave with the idea to make their own."

Community choice

Essenati Obadi using the bucket and windlass well which was installed in her village.

Credit: WaterAid / Jon Spaull

The community in Malica, Mozambique, completed their well in 2001. Essenati Obadi explains the difference it has brought to her life.

"I used to collect water from a traditional well," she says. "During the dry season there was very little water and we didn't have enough to wash with. A lot of people had scabies and we often heard of people dying from diarrhoea. It was very bad and that was why we wanted a well.

"I was in the group which decided what the community needed for their water source. We chose to have a bucket and windlass because handpump spares are very hard to come by and it is hard to repair them in this area. It is easy to mend this kind of well.

"The men in the village dug the well as our contribution. We chose to put the well here (it is a few minute's walk away from the houses down a small hill) so that it won't run out in the dry season like the old source. Here we will always have water. If it was further up the hill we would have to dig much deeper and it may still have run dry."

Self-funded sewers

WaterAid and its partner Anjuman Samaji Behbood (ASB), are helping communities in Faisalabad, Pakistan, living in cramped, low income settlements to install underground piping to channel sewage to the main municipal sewage line.

WaterAid and ASB are providing the technical know-how but the communities themselves are financing both the initial construction and maintenance, and providing the necessary labour.

The new community sewer project in the Hasan Pur slum has been so successful the community has been able to persuade the local government to pipe water to their area as well.

Abdul Rezark, a lane manager in Hasan Pura, explains how the project works. "I was nominated as a lane manager by the residents on the street. I was then given training and technical assistance by ASB.

As a lane manager I collect the maintenance money from the local residents and I also manage the labour. My main job is to look after the credit system and ensure it is benefiting everyone.

The local residents all agree to pay a small amount for the project. If residents cannot afford it, ASB can loan them money which they pay back over several months. This is a self help project; we do not want anything for free."