Building entrepreneurship in sanitation
For the past few years, we have been working across Dar es Salaam in unplanned settlements to improve liquid and solid waste management. 70% of the city is unplanned, and these areas often rely on unsafe sources of water and inadequate sanitation. With Tanzania rapidly urbanising, we have been looking at innovative solutions for waste management, aiming to improve the health and hygiene of the surrounding communities. Currently, waste is disposed of in the environment or nearby rivers, polluting the area and encouraging the spread of diseases, such as cholera.
Our work in this area has involved looking at technologies, such as the gulper, for pit-latrine emptying, and Decentralised Wastewater Treatment Systems (DEWATS), which we have constructed in Kigamboni and Temeke Municipal. These technologies allow of pit-emptying to be done in a safe and hygienic way, and disposed of safely. The recent Fecal Sludge Treatment Plant constructed recycles sludge into fertiliser and biogas.
Urban WASH planning
In Tanzania, cities are growing at nearly twice the rate of the country’s annual population growth. More than half of Tanzania’s urban population do not have access to improved toilets, and compliance with good hygiene practices is low. Densely populated, unplanned urban settlements with inadequate sanitation and hygiene services pose significant health risks and have wider impacts on education, livelihoods, wellbeing, and human dignity.
We have completed a research project in Babati town, looking at how the town council can embed sanitation and hygiene into it's city planning. We are also part of the International Training Programme - Sustainable Urban Water and Sanitation (ITP SUWAS) which trains key stakeholders involved in urban WASH on how to improve their ways of working in order to delivery sustainable and equitable services.
Learn about our projects below:
