Hi Walude,

I think that it would be best to have a look at the link below, which briefly describes some strategies to introduce the SODIS method to a community most effectively.

http://www.sodis.ch/Text2002/T-SocialAspects.htm

This is an excellent website and has case studies that you may be able to adapt to your local situation.

Best regards,
Scott

That's right, Tanja. This is what makes the problem so acute. The solution to such problems cannot be achieved on a village-by-village basis. (Milk only came up in this thread above as an example where pasteurization of water was being discussed). For any meaningful impact on people, solutions of mega-proportions and at a macro-level need to mobilized. Such possibilities exist only at the levels of governments and professional organizations which act in tandem with the governments, and can organize complete systems of internationally-proven technology, which can benefit a much larger population of dozens of similarly affected villages in the region. The role of volunteer groups fits in only at the lower end of this chain. Volunteer groups do not have the capability to act on their own in life-threatening issues like epidemics or absence of drinking water, in the complete absence of any major governmental and professional support, and in the event of any failure, the next step can be a total catastrophe involving loss of human life. Hence the role of governments in conjunction with professionally managed organizations of international repute becomes critical in such cases.
Vijai

Hi Vijai,

I agree that the role of government is important, but Africa is not quite setting the example in good governance. Both local governments and international organizations have failed on the larger scale. That is why volunteers try to find a viable solution to a current, acute problem. No guarantees we can make the situation better, but at least we can try. Scott is offering a solution, it may not be a perfect one, but it is a practical solution, with a practical value.

In relation to this conversation-how is India handling water purification? Is it safe to drink out of the tap in rural areas?

Best regards,
--
-Tanja

Hi Tanja,

To understand from a different perspective, let us presume that all situations requiring help fall in 2 categories :

Category 1 - situations in the safe zone - like raising funds, starting a school, creating a library, starting a cow bank, poultry, goats, social centre, buying a van, increasing yield from farms, using drip irrigation, organic farming, etc.

Category 2 - life-threatening situations - like epidemics, absence of drinking water for large populations, famine, natural disasters, wars, etc.

Activities in Category 1 can be comfortably managed by volunteer groups on their own.

Activities in category 2 are a different ball-game altogether. Even the slightest mistake can be catastrophic, resulting in death and destruction on a major scale. Such activities are to be handled only by governments in conjunction with major professionally-managed organizations. If at all volunteer groups are associated at the opposite end, these are merely to execute instructions, and certainly not for decision making on core issues. Decision making is done only at the government levels and the rest of the chain must ensure execution. Only internationally proven technologies and processes are deployed, and trials of any kind are taboo, and prohibited. These are war-like situations, where things are not allowed to happen at random.

About the situation in rural India - well, India has abundant water resources in the form of rivers and ground water. Rural areas have several options - wells are quite common, municipal supplies through centralized pumping providing piped water to villages in several regions are also quite common. Areas of water deficit and water quality are on top of the agenda for the central and state governments. The bottom-line is that the government interfaces with the society in all regions on all water-related issues. It is a well-coordinated effort that extends to all villages in the country through the local governments.

Vijai

Hi all,

Would you please read the documentation attached ( an online download from one of the Hesparien Books). It may offer important lessons for Walungu's quest to arrest any cholera threats. It could be used as a ground breaking story in a training of community volunteers.

Best wishes

--
Programme Development Director
NICRAD

Promoting Grassroots Partnerships to enhance Sustainable Development

Promoting Community Environmental Health.pdf

Hi everyone!

This an excellent discussion, and it's so good to have a wide range of opinions. That afterall, is what nabuur and this forum is about. If we keep this energy up, and supplement the debate with action we'll achieve truly great outcomes!

I think that there are some interesting points that have been made, and I suppose one of the first things that we really have to sort out is what our collective goal is, and where we fit in to the overall picture of improving the living standards of the people in Walungu.

What does everyone think of our group drawing up an action plan so that we can address these issues in a methodical, prioritised and most importantly, effective fashion?

Here's a quick list of ideas that come to mind:

1. Establish a list of NGO's and volunteer groups, both remote and on location, with who we can form alliances with.

By working with local groups, we can achieve far more than if we work on our own. We may be duplicating work that has already been done, and yet not be achieving the traction that we would like. With NGO's being stretched in terms of resources and scope, we may be able to assist, offer a meaningful contribution, and perhaps draw attention to issues that haven't been picked up on or addressed until now.

There must be engineers (e.g. Engineers Without Borders) and health workers (e.g. Medecins Sans Frontiers, Red Cross, etc...) nearby that we can contact and work in close partnership with to get work done. Perhaps collectively we should try to establish contacts with these organisations? At the very least, we can encourage the mobilisation of the local volunteer groups to areas of need.

2. Agree upon our core strengths and our most effective contribution methods (establishing local contacts, mobilising local activity, raising awareness, writing procedures, developing manuals, etc...)

3. Draw up a list of tasks to complete that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound (SMART). We've already got a start on this (i.e. Decreasing threat of Cholera; Developing dairy goat manuals) They should ideally be in co-operation with the alliances formed in Point 1.

4. Appeal for neighbours to accept/volunteer ownership of one of these tasks each. There's no shame in passing it on to someone else at a later date, but each volunteer for their period of service can take pride in their individual contribution.

There may very well be issues that will fall outside of the original scope of this village, but this is not a bad thing as long as we don't take on too much work.

Importantly, we should try to look at the problems we're addressing in the area (such as cholera) in a holistic way, such as detailed in Walude's attachment below. Thanks Walude!

Cholera can be fought at the individual level, such as with the SODIS method, and boiling. This is great. But what about addressing the root of the problem? Assisting with the design and construction of effective latrines, protected from wet season water flows which lead to the pollution of drinking wells, rivers and streams. Teaching the locals about the principles of hygiene.

Wow! What a long post! I think I'll stop now :)

I look forward to reading all of your ideas!

Thanks,
Scott

Hi Vijai,

Thanks for sharing this information:)

Scott,

Can I use some of your ideas in the discussion in the resource group, we are updating training materials and methodology for Nabuur projects and the timing of your suggestions is perfect. May be you will join us if you have some extra time:)
--
-Tanja

Hi Tanja,
A small update to your remark above might help during your visit to India. The existing water supply systems in the country support a population of over one billion people. The capital, New Delhi, alone has a population which is greater than all of Switzerland. This huge population is not on bottled water. Nevertheless, as a short-term traveller to India you might need to preferably stick to a good brand of bottled water since this may provide consistent quality at any location. In case you plan to stay longer you could gradually switch to the piped municipal water or other traditional sources of water in the region you are in.
Vijai

Hi everyone

I'm back from my trip and trying to catch up with discussions. Thank you all for these great contributions!

Scott - Guillaume and I were talking about something very similar; let's develop it further.
Regarding briquettes, he sent and email to the guy in Bukavu but still no reply from him. We'll follow up and Guiom will try to meet Virginia in Goma when he gets a chance to go there.

I'll post some comments and updates this weekend.

Sonja

Hi Tanja,
Sure you can! I'd be happy to join in with the discussion too.

Sonja,
I hope you had a great trip! I look forward to hearing more of Guillaume's meeting with Virginia if it can be arranged, and hopefully we hear back from Bahizire soon. :)

Cheers,
Scott

Scott,

Great! Thanks, I am looking forward to see you in the resource group :)

--
-Tanja

yes Tanja the role of government is important, but in our situation in africa is not quite setting the example in good governance. That is why volunteers try to find a viable solution to a current, acute problem. No guarantees we can make the situation better, but at least we can try. Scott is offering a solution, it may not be a perfect one, but it is a practical solution, with a practical value.

in walungu water remain a big issue and as I notice ,goverment is existing since 1960 and probleme still exist and became more bad than in the past.At that time volunteer can't leave the situation to became bad more and more.That's why we try to help as much as wecan.asking help and advise and that's what weare doing.

Guillaume

Hi Scott and everyone,

I finally got some time to update you about what Guillaume and I were talking recently about the water project.

The issue is
#1 - lack of available clean drinking water in the village - there are only 2 tanks and local girls and women are manually collecting the water and carrying it home
#2 - people are not enough educated about hygiene and how to treat water, so that there is a threat of waterborne diseases

From our earlier discussion (with Tanja, Scott, Guillaume and myself), we realized that possible causes of contaminatio are:
#1 - their lack of hygiene awareness
#2 - latrines built too close to the river
#3 - water tank might not be appropriatelly maintained

Guillaume and I were talking about starting new project to help get more water resources and decrease threat of cholera and other waterborne diseases.

Our idea for now is to first get info and exchange experiences with other Nabuur villages that successfully implemented similar projects, and then to search for more info on Internet and elsewhere, if needed.

We should investigate what would be best cost/effective solution for lack of water (build more tanks, or rainwater harvesting, or some other method...)

The first steps to be taken in the village should be to get other volunteers on board and to try to mobilize local medical staff to help us out. We believe that we should start with hygiene trainings to raise awareness about cholera and other diseases - what causes them and how to treat water to decrease risks of contamination (washing hands and food, boiling water, etc).
Also, define how possible/effective would be to use methods like SODIS or chlorination of water etc.

The community should also be made aware of sanitation problems and what they could do about it. We believe that many individuals would move or build their latrines to some safer places and maintain them better. Some families will not have means to do so, but many certainly will.

I am sure that these inexpensive but important steps will make a big difference and help us get involved many other individuals and organizations, maybe even local authorities themselves, and get some funds to secure more water sources and effective latrines for Walungu, and maybe to fix existing tanks to become safer.

This is all, of course, in addition to/complementing the activities that Scott proposed.

What do you guys think?

Looking forward to your comments,
Sonja

Dear all,
In the past days I have gone through most of your postings about water-safety and the threat of cholera.
It is amazing to see how much thinkingwork has been done. The trouble is that the subject moves in all kind of directions. I believe the most important thing is, whatever we undertake, we should cooperate with local authoraties and NGO's, who deal with health-matters. Guillaume, I have read that Congo DRC is divided in 380 zones and that the Medical Provincial Inspection is responsible for the local health-policy. Is this correct and what do they do for you ? Furtheron, I discovered two NGO's who work in Kivu in this field. One is called "Asrames", they operate both in the rebel- and in governement controlled areas as a distributor of medication. They are sponsored by a Dutch NGO "Healtnet international". The other NGO I discovered is called CIF-Santé. Maybe you could contact them?
What I still don't know, after all these months, is, if Walungu (or rather Ngweshe) is a city or a village and how many persons, you Guillaume, are working for. Would you be so kind to inform me?
The most "concrete" point of our action might be to (re)build a good watertank.
I will try to enclose an article I read of a Dutch doctor, who worked in Kivu for Doctors without Borders. He dealt every day with cholera and other diseases.
Take care,
Nico

Cholera-MSF.doc

Hi Nico,

I have asked Guillaume to post again his reply on your post, since obviously there was a problem with the first one so it didn't show up.
Hope he'll be able to do it soon.

There is definitely a need for fixing the old and building another water tank, together with improving hygiene habits of the community and sanitation in the village.
As I posted before, Edmond is prepairnig a training and Walude was also kind to advise about how to design it. He proposed that a group of peer educators is trained first, who would then train the others. Guillaume and Roger are working on organizing people, and as soon as I have some news I'll let you know.

Sonja