Ms Emily Woods is an NSF scholar with a passion for developing innovative and affordable technology solutions. After a chance meeting at the World Water Week this year, we decided to take the conversation forward and learn more about innovations in non-sewered sanitation from Ms Woods herself.  Here are the excerpts from our chat:

Please tell us about the on-going faecal sludge management being done by Sanivation in urbanising communities…

Absolutely! Sanivation is focusing on partnering with different institutions and governments to create sustainable non-sewered faecal sludge management in urbanizing cities. It looks a little bit different in different areas because different areas have different needs. Sometimes it’s providing Container Based Toilets; sometimes it’s helping emptying pit latrines. But all of it is about getting waste to our treatment processing facilities where we treat the waste and convert it to solid sustainable fuel like charcoal and firewood substitute.

Any particular reason for having chosen Naivasha for the project…

We currently have operations in Naivasha, Kenya which is peri-urban area and also in Kakuma refugee camp which is on the South Sudan border.

Naivasha is an extremely fast urbanising community with amenable infrastructure here and the Government partners in the area have been interested to see what are the non-sewered options so that they can try to expand sanitation quicker. And then up in the refugee camp, we’re partnered with UNHCR and NRC where they are running out of space to put pit latrines and flooding and rocky soils make installing pit latrines very difficult and there are not many options for refugee camps. They are looking for more sustainable options to be cost-competitive pit latrines.

What inspired you to look into non-sewered sanitation and develop innovations?

Great question! I was working for a non-profit here in Kenya and they had funding to build 900 new pit latrines and so I was brought on board to design cheaper, better pit latrines but we realised that the average pit latrine area we were working on filled up in about three years and the area we were working on didn’t have any way for emptying pit latrines and definitely no way of treating the waste even if it was collected. And so we were installing a solution that was basically a three-year band-aid. When I brought this up with the non-profit and said: “Hey, this is just a three-year solution, shouldn’t we think longer term?”  Their response was “yeah you are right! Our funding is for pit latrines. Let’s go see if we can think of funding to also think about more sustainable options!” I was really frustrated with the answer and I think sometimes non-profit are too beholden to the funding they have. Sanivation, on the other hand, is a for-profit which is beholden to the beneficiaries and to the market. If you are not creating a solution that people are going to pay for, then you are not going to exist.

Could you give us an insight into how the entire project works?

Sanivation focuses on partnering with local governments to create comprehensive sanitation provision to rapidly urbanizing areas. Our secret is understanding that waste has value. If we can design systems about reusing human waste, then we can actually create secondary revenue streams in waste processing. What that means is we can, and have, built treatment factories that not only treat human waste but convert it to something valuable – in our case it is sustainable solid fuel, a firewood and charcoal substitute. Once we have these sustainable treatment factories we can also focus on working to collect more waste out of the communities: such as Container based toilets (picture on the right). Households here in and near Naivasha, they rent this toilet at about 2 to 5 dollars a month and they get this toilet that they can keep in their house and works just like a toilet but it has two containers on the inside – one collects the urine and one collects the feces. Their monthly rental fee pays for one of our staff to go to their house twice a week, collect the full bucket and put in empty pits and transport the full bucket to our treatment site. Or emptying pit latrines, this is something new which we are trying to work on with some experts from other places and we are very much trying to figure out what exactly is the business model where we can still be at a price that people can afford but also at a price that can make us a profitable company. So there’s still a lot of work to do there.

Were there any challenges that you faced during implementation? For e.g. resistance by the community towards adopting fuel derived from human waste? 

Yeah! I always get this question obviously and I think, the key point is that if the final product doesn’t look or smell anything like poop and it actually performs compared with other options and at a price which is competitive, people don’t seem to mind that it comes from poop. Usually, at first, people make a face! But when they see it burning and realise it doesn’t smell like poop; it doesn’t look like poop; they wouldn’t know it’s from poop unless we told them and then you tell them the price, people start coming around pretty fast (picture on the right).

Over the years of implementation of this project, has there been a noticeable behaviour change in the community towards sanitation?

Yes, Like I said we are really focused on partnering with other institutions and government organisations who are responsible for sanitation in the area. Moreover, the changes we have seen is that when we first started working here in Naivasha, the only solution for water and sanitation utility was to put sewerage lines and treatment plants. A lot of the work and a lot of the change has been a change in the mentality that there are other solutions. You don’t have to put in sewerage lines everywhere. Not everyone has to have a flush toilet. They can still have a dignified safe sanitation option. And I think that’s been one of the biggest changes. Now people have heard the term faecal sludge management (See picture of treated waste on left) or non-sewered options and they are starting to really get on board and we see that not only in Naivasha but all over Kenya right now and it’s really exciting!

Your comments on biomass being a more sustainable solution for the environment…

Absolutely! So for every ton of our charcoal (picture on left) that we sell, we are saving 88 trees from being cut down in Kenya! Deforestation is now a big problem in Kenya and also in rest of the places in the world. So in utilizing the calorific value for dried human waste is competitive with most dry wood from trees. They have very similar calorific values which is incredible! So instead of cutting down trees, let’s actually make use of this product that has been a waste product for so long around the world.

A peek into the future plans of Sanivation…

The key thing is that we are a company. It’s not just a project or a one-off. And so we are very much looking at what are the scaling plans and in the near future, we are focusing on Kenya as we start working with the Government through their policies so it makes it easier to stay within the country. I think with our work with the refugee camps and our partnership with the UNHCR might take us to very other places sooner rather than later. We also have a new factory opening on World Toilet Day on November 19^th this year. With time, I would love to partner and work all over the world and bringing different types of non-sewered solutions everywhere!

The post In conversation with: Emily Woods, CTO and Co-Founder, Sanivation appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.

Ruth Koki Mwanzia, County Minister for Heath and Sanitation, Kenya

CLTS was introduced in Kenya by Plan Kenya in May 2007 and it was introduced in Kitui county in 2010. Last year in Kitui County Open Defecation Free (ODF) campaign ceremony, the county became one of the first counties to publicly declare that it intends to become Open Defecation Free by December 2015.

Ruth Koki Mwanzia, County Minister for Health and Sanitation in Kitui county was invited to share her experiences at a high-level advocacy workshop in Nairobi to institutionalize CLTS in Somalia (click here to read about the workshop). After the workshop, Preetha Prabhakaran, Programme Manager (Knowledge Management & Partnerships) caught up with Madame Mwanzia to know more about her experiences with implementing CLTS in her county.

What makes you believe in the CLTS approach and what are the changes you have seen in your county after rolling it out?

I am a public health specialist trained in epidemiology and population studies and was trained in the CLTS approach even before I was appointed to the county government. When I came on board I founded a team of health workers who had also been trained in the approach. Since we started working in Kitui, I have seen the transformation in health indicators. Diarrheal cases reduced by 10% and to us it means a lot in terms of reducing infant deaths, deaths of children under five, malnutrition and money saved on medical expenses which is household money and government money which can be used for other development activities.

What have been some of the factors that have led to the success of CLTS in your county?

The important factor for success has been leadership and in our county the Governor His Excellency Dr. Julius M. Malombe has been championing the CLTS programme from the very beginning. He has also ensured that resources are allocated from the county budget for the same. After he attended the Ministerial Session organised by CLTS Foundation Global at Africasan this year, he was so convinced that he came back to Kitui and approved an additional 5% budget for CLTS. Secondly, the goodwill of the community and emergence of natural leaders is important. In Kitui, religious leaders, provincial administration, assistant chiefs, village elders, sub-county administrators, ward administrators, village administrators, council elders, chamas (these are women’s groups) and also children were involved. We realized that achieving ODF Kitui cannot be the responsibility of one department alone, it has to be everybody’s business.

What are the challenges you were/are facing in implementation of the programme?

The main challenge was that of subsidy. People were used to assistance being provided to build sanitary facilities, but we introduced the community-led approach where the community themselves take action to improve their own health through building their own sanitation facilities. At first the people felt that ‘this is not what we are used to’, but as CLTS is a self-actualizing process, after going through the triggering the communities changed. They realised they have been eating each other’s shit. They understood the reason behind diarrheal diseases, malnutrition, child deaths, the high amount of money spent on hospital bills and working days lost due to the amount of time spent in hospitals. This realisation itself changes people. So, they started seeing beyond the subsidy and instead they started thinking about their health, economic & social development and dignity.

Another challenge in Kitui is that of digging latrine pits in rocky areas. Sometimes it becomes difficult to dig, but thankfully the rocks are not so hard, so at least people can dig to some extent.

Another challenge is on the government’s side, because the county government has so many responsibilities and competing priorities other than sanitation. However,what we did to counter this is that we packaged sanitation to show how good sanitation impacts positively on all these other areas. We realised that the way to get every ministry rooting for sanitation is to show them how the knock-on benefits of sanitation contributes to better education, health, nutrition, etc. We showed them how if we have good sanitation, children will be healthy and they will go to school every morning therefore increasing attendance rates in school, how the rates of malnutrition would fall and nutritional programmes would be more effective. This way we have managed to get the support from other ministries and that is how we ensured that sanitation was given due priority when allocating budgets. We have always believed that the process of improving sanitation has to be led by the government from the front in terms of formulating policy and giving direction but at the community level it is the community that will lead. Development partners can work with us in identifying gaps and help bridging them but they can only play a facilitating role.

In your personal capacity what have you contributed to the ODF Kitui drive ? Has your county been able to influence other counties?

Since I joined the Heath and Sanitation Ministry we achieved one ODF district and currently we are working with the community and other partners to make another three districts ODF. Under my leadership we got the Pamoja Tujikinge Magonjwa Integrated programme which means “Let us together protect ourselves from diseases” and which is also our strategy for achieving an ODF county.

Now, we are working with AMREF (African Medical and Research Foundation), UNICEF, World Vision, government officers, natural leaders and communities to make sure we become an ODF county by this year. This is an ambition which we are still pushing. Even if we don’t achieve ODF status, we must at least achieve 80% success. I think we can do it as we are bringing more volunteers for follow up and post-triggering activities.

We are discussing the ODF agenda with other counties and have discussed broadly that preventive health is better than curative health if we want to achieve our vision of universal health for our people. Now many counties are working on preventive models like CLTS on their sanitation programmes. The counties which are doing well are Nyando, Busia and Nakuru.

The post Community-Led Total Sanitation in Kenya appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.

Recently, Ruth Koki Mwanzia, County Minister for Heath and Sanitation in Kitui county was invited to share her experiences at a high-level advocacy workshop in Nairobi to institutionalize CLTS in Somalia.

After the workshop, Preetha Prabhakaran, Programme Manager (Knowledge Management and Partnerships) spoke to Madame Mwanzia to know more about her experiences with implementing CLTS in her county.

What makes you believe in the CLTS approach and what are the changes you have seen in your county after rolling it out?

I am a public health specialist trained in epidemiology and population studies and was trained in the CLTS approach even before I was appointed to the county government. When I came on board I founded a team of health workers who had also been trained in the approach. Since we started working in Kitui, I have seen the transformation in health indicators. Diarrheal cases reduced by 10% and to us it means a lot in terms of reducing infant deaths, deaths of children under five, malnutrition and money saved on medical expenses which is household money and government money which can be used for other development activities.

What have been some of the factors that have led to the success of CLTS in your county?

The important factor for success has been leadership and in our county the Governor His Excellency Dr. Julius M. Malombe has been championing the CLTS programme from the very beginning. He has also ensured that resources are allocated from the county budget for the same. After he attended the Ministerial Session organised by CLTS Foundation Global at Africasan this year, he was so convinced that he came back to Kitui and approved an additional 5% budget for CLTS. Secondly, the goodwill of the community and emergence of natural leaders is important. In Kitui, religious leaders, provincial administration, assistant chiefs, village elders, sub-county administrators, ward administrators, village administrators, council elders, chamas (these are women’s groups) and also children were involved. We realized that achieving ODF Kitui cannot be the responsibility of one department alone, it has to be everybody’s business.

What are the challenges you were/are facing in implementation of the programme?

The main challenge was that of subsidy. People were used to assistance being provided to build sanitary facilities, but we introduced the community-led approach where the community themselves take action to improve their own health through building their own sanitation facilities. At first the people felt that ‘this is not what we are used to’, but as CLTS is a self-actualizing process, after going through the triggering the communities changed. They realised they have been eating each other’s shit. They understood the reason behind diarrheal diseases, malnutrition, child deaths, the high amount of money spent on hospital bills and working days lost due to the amount of time spent in hospitals. This realisation itself changes people. So, they started seeing beyond the subsidy and instead they started thinking about their health, economic & social development and dignity.

Another challenge in Kitui is that of digging latrine pits in rocky areas. Sometimes it becomes difficult to dig, but thankfully the rocks are not so hard, so at least people can dig to some extent.

Another challenge is on the government’s side, because the county government has so many responsibilities and competing priorities other than sanitation. However,what we did to counter this is that we packaged sanitation to show how good sanitation impacts positively on all these other areas. We realised that the way to get every ministry rooting for sanitation is to show them how the knock-on benefits of sanitation contributes to better education, health, nutrition, etc. We showed them how if we have good sanitation, children will be healthy and they will go to school every morning therefore increasing attendance rates in school, how the rates of malnutrition would fall and nutritional programmes would be more effective. This way we have managed to get the support from other ministries and that is how we ensured that sanitation was given due priority when allocating budgets. We have always believed that the process of improving sanitation has to be led by the government from the front in terms of formulating policy and giving direction but at the community level it is the community that will lead. Development partners can work with us in identifying gaps and help bridging them but they can only play a facilitating role.

In your personal capacity what have you contributed to the ODF Kitui drive ? Has your county been able to influence other counties?

Since I joined the Heath and Sanitation Ministry we achieved one ODF district and currently we are working with the community and other partners to make another three districts ODF. Under my leadership we got the Pamoja Tujikinge Magonjwa Integrated programme which means “Let us together protect ourselves from diseases” and which is also our strategy for achieving an ODF county.

Now, we are working with AMREF (African Medical and Research Foundation), UNICEF, World Vision, government officers, natural leaders and communities to make sure we become an ODF county by this year. This is an ambition which we are still pushing. Even if we don’t achieve ODF status, we must at least achieve 80% success. I think we can do it as we are bringing more volunteers for follow up and post-triggering activities.

We are discussing the ODF agenda with other counties and have discussed broadly that preventive health is better than curative health if we want to achieve our vision of universal health for our people. Now many counties are working on preventive models like CLTS on their sanitation programmes. The counties which are doing well are Nyando, Busia and Nakuru.

The post ‘Even if we don’t achieve ODF status, we must at least achieve 80% success’ appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.