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AIDG Blog [Appropriate Technology, Development, Environment]
The National Palace is still in ruins 2 years on. Photo Credit: Cat Laine - http://www.paintedfoot.com
Today is the two-year anniversary of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and I wanted to write a positive article about the good projects I have seen there. Unfortunately after reflecting, I felt that it would be a disservice to all the people still living in camps; it would be a disservice to all those who have been evicted. Things are getting better and will improve in the coming year in Haiti, but we are a long way from having the rebuilt, revitalized Port-au-Prince that people hoped for. And it is respecting those hopes that I must say the international community, while good at meeting immediate needs, has done a poor job in transforming lives and livelihoods and I fear we may fail to deliver what the Haitian people are expecting of us. Unfortunately we are running out of time to change our ways. Failures from Past Disasters: Gonaïves
I want to bring your attention back to 2008 and another devastating tragedy in Haiti: the hurricanes and flooding in Gonaïves, a city a few hours north from the capital. Gonaïves flooded with 10 feet of water; 800 people were killed and there was over a billion dollars in damage. US$100 million was given in response (Al Jazeera → http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUZQzVmBpNk). The international community responded in force. Tents and emergency supplies were sent in. However, I invite you to visit Gonaïves 4 years on and tell me if that was money well spent. Many projects are half completed or not even started such as the US$19 million hospital pledged by the Canadian Government (http://www.canadahaitiaction.ca/content/failed-reconstruction-haiti-debated-canada). Admittedly there aren’t huge tent cities in Gonaïves, but that is because many people were able to reclaim existing housing stock when flood waters receded.
While some might point to the 500,000 figure as a significant reduction from 1.3 million displaced by the disaster, it should be noted that only 4.7% of those who got out of camps got into quality housing (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/world/americas/24haiti.html ). Many were simply evicted into worse conditions than the camps in informal settlements. Many others got themselves out as soon as possible with the help of remittances from family and friends living overseas. The rate of people leaving camps over the past year and a half has slowed dramatically. The people who are left have fewer and fewer means. The biggest fear for me is that when the money runs out in Port-Au-Prince, we will have a situation similar to Gonaïves with closed NGO offices and unfinished projects and with people left to fend for themselves in informal settlements.
The Money
Where is the money? The one positive statement I can make is that in analyzing the situation I don’t see a lot of opportunities for graft in the traditional sense. Contrary to conspiracy theory the money, wasn’t stolen, it was spent. Largely it was spent on things people might expect: food, water, gasoline, medical supplies, and salaries. But there were some expenditures people may not have planned on. For example of the US$376 million from the US government, 30% was spent on our own military (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/03-2#.TwM6I9iK42A.twitter).
Of the US$2.6 billion given in the past two years and the US$9.9 billion pledged at the Haiti Donors Conference held at the UN Headquarters in New York in March 2010, it can be hard to understand where the money went.
TOP TEN NGO AID RECIPIENTS (USD)
In total, the following 10 NGOs raised $1.4 billion out of the estimated $2.6 billion of private aid funding given for Haiti earthquake relief.
American Red Cross: $486 million raised → food, shelter, medical supplies → $330 million spent Médecins Sans Frontières: $138 million raised → emergency medical support → $58 million spent Catholic Relief Services : $136.9 million raised → shelter, cholera → $67.6 million spent World Vision: $132 million raised → everything → $194 million spent Save the Children: $128 million raised→ child services → $100 million spent Oxfam: $120 million raised globally → water, sanitation, shelter → $89 million spent Partners In Health: $102 million raised → health care → $72 million spent Care: $58.8 million raised → food, water, shelter hygiene → $41.4 million spent Clinton Bush Haiti Fund: $54.1 million raised → job promotion → $37.6 million spent Habitat For Humanity: $38 million raised → emergency shelter, housing → $38 million spent
In March 2010, US$ 9.9 billion was pledged at the Haiti Donors Conference for the Haiti Reconstruction Fund (HRF), of which US$ 5.3 billion was to be disbursed by Fall 2011. Of that US$ 5.3 billion, US$800 million is debt relief. According to the Office of the UN Special Envoy, only US$ 2.38 billion have been dispersed of the remaining US$ 4.5 billion. From Haiti Libre:
“Of the US$4.50 billion pledged, US$2.38 billion (52.9%) has been disbursed through four channels:
$1.59 billion (67%) in grants in support of the Government of Haiti, and to multilateral agencies, NGOs and private contractors; $319.9 million (13%) in budget support to the Government of Haiti; $275.8 million (12%) in pooled grant funding to the United Nations, Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank through the Haiti Reconstruction Fund; and $197.6 million (8%) in loans to the Government of Haiti
The donors have disbursed an additional US$654.8 million for general development in Haiti, outside of the New York conference recovery pledges.”
The Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission (IHRC), which was formed under the mandate of the Haitian government to disburse the funds in the HRF, has granted US$1.8 billion of those funds to several hundred organizations.
Unfortunately, the IHRC suspended operations in October because the Haitian government would not renew its mandate. It is a shame because the IHRC was one of the few entities getting money out the door on a large scale. So the onus is now on the Haitian government to manage the money in the Haiti Reconstruction Fund.
But even IHRC funding going out the door doesn’t mean work is happening on the ground. For instance everybody talks about housing in Haiti as the biggest need, but one of the big barriers to quality housing, aside from land title, is access to micro-mortgages and repair financing. Over a year ago, I spoke with Gabriel Verret, the head of the IHRC about micro-mortgages as an option to facilitate home ownership for those affected by the disaster. He said yes they had been looking into that. Indeed the Housing Finance Facility was approved with US$47 million to do this in February 2010 (http://en.cirh.ht/housing-finance-facility-hff.html ). By March 2011, this money was appointed to Development Innovations Group (DIG). As of this week, the country director at DIG couldn’t provide information on when the funds would become available. For a US$50 million fund focused on Haiti’s core challenge, it is a shame there is not even a launch date in place yet. This is just one project in the book of IHRC funded activities.
Humanitarian Projects
So a lot of the money spent by NGOs went to getting people the basics: shelter, food, water, medical care and sanitation. For the all the problems with these responses, and I am going to piss off a lot of my activist friends by saying this, all things considered the international community did pretty well on triage. They housed and fed over a million people. They took care of 300,000 wounded. They treated 250,000 cases of cholera. That is serious work and should not be discounted. The problem is when you give to groups like the Red Cross this is the extent of the services you will get, food, water shelter, medical care. The humanitarian organizations are really good at that. What we’re worse at on the humanitarian side is rebuilding lives and livelihoods. That requires government intervention.
A good example of the failed ties between humanitarian organizations and government comes from housing and the Building Back Better Communities Expo. The Expo was supposed to be a showcase of model homes that would be used in reconstruction. I first heard about it in May 2010; the first Request for Proposals went out in June. But due to untold delays the Expo itself didn’t happen until June 2011! I knew several of the participant companies and they were hopeful to leverage government contracts after the Expo to launch real housing solutions in Haiti. Even now two years on from the quake those hopes have not moved forward.
Another unfortunate thing about the BBBC Expo is that it took place in the common area of a giant affordable housing apartment complex built during the Aristide era that stood up to the quake (unfortunate because it took the only green space from that community). My colleague Sasha Kramer, Executive Director of SOIL, (http://www.oursoil.org) kept asking the organizers, “Why is nobody building apartments like that…?” She never got an answer.
Not all projects were delayed. The Iron Market is a perfect example of this and is the crown jewel project of billionaire philanthropist Denis O’Brien, founder of Digicel. In all deference, Denis became the success he is because he has a “get ‘er done” attitude that is almost a force of nature. The man gets involved in all level of projects across the country and sees them through to completion from bridges across previously uncrossable rivers to schools in the remotest regions. But as one guy he can only do so much, as epitomized by the Iron Market. If you look at photos around the market it is surrounded by destroyed buildings. The entire area looks like a war zone, except for one gleaming project.
That captures a lot of the aid effort in Haiti right now, one project at a time. Maybe a nice school or an orphanage but no systemic change. I remember in the days early after the quake being berated by Denis because I was trying to get container forklifts sent to the Port of Cap-Haïtien, the second largest port in the country and then the only functioning port. At that point in time Cap-Haïtien was not accepting new containers of goods, aid, or food for the rest of the country because it was clogged with empty shipping containers. “We need to focus on Port-au-Prince people,” said Denis who offered that he might buy the forklifts for Cap-Haïtien himself if needed. This situation became symbolic to me of the problems of centralized Haiti, a country being denied food because its main port in Port-Au-Prince was shut down, couldn’t accept supplies in its secondary port because of something as small as broken forklifts. For me at that point, understanding Haiti’s problems involved stopping for a moment and getting the focus off of Port-Au-Prince. Reconstruction and Decentralization
At one time Haiti had a number of vibrant port cities, Port-au-Prince was just one of them. If Haiti wants to get out of poverty it needs to reclaim its regional metropolis structure. Creating economic opportunities requires development in the regional city hubs: Cap-Haïtien, Gonaïves, Jacmel, Jeremie, Mirebalais, St. Marc, etc. A few months after the quake former Haitian Prime Minister Michelle Pierre-Louis sent me a copy of this interministerial plan (http://www.aidg.org/documents/mpl_HAITI_DEMAIN.pdf). This was one of a few plans developed for the first donors’ meeting in the Dominican Republic. The countering government plan that was presented at the March 2010 Donors Conference in New York also included decentralization as a theme (http://www.haiticonference.org/Haiti_Action_Plan_ENG.pdf), but the implementation has been muted. Following a true plan of decentralization could lead to wealth generation for all Haitians.
It is important for people outside Haiti to understand the importance of decentralization for the economic development of the country. Rugged terrain and a poor road network heighten the needs for stronger regional economic markets. People have blasted the industrial park at Caracol, currently the largest project in Haiti at US$257 million, for being located on the North Coast and for being low wage textile jobs. In my mind, the primary mistake in this project is that they did not hire 50% of the workers straight from camps in Port-Au-Prince and build them worker housing at Caracol.
The country needs more projects like this, generating large amounts of employment, leveraging functioning urban centers outside of the metropolitan Port-Au-Prince area. The US$16 million teaching hospital being built by Partners in Health in Mirebalais is another example of projects outside the capital that hold bright promise for the future of the country. The ideal would be to tie these projects to housing initiatives that clear out the camps in Port-Au-Prince. In Port-Au-Prince everybody argues about land title. If you offered Jeremie a new road network, factory and airport, I can guarantee you’ll find land for a 40,000 person community out there. The same holds for other cities.
I am just trying to be clear here that the reconstruction of Port-au-Prince is going to be a decades long affair. The conditions there are not ideal for the population contained within the city limits. We are late on this. We should have started transitioning people day one out of camps by empowering business development throughout the country. I remember the Delegate for the North telling me he expected 100,000 people relocated to Cap-Haïtien. How many did Cap get? 15,000 coming on their own. That is not an effort toward decentralization. But we should know it is not too late to start. There is still hope for developing an economically robust decentralized Haiti. Ending Stopgaps
And let’s be clear the clock is ticking. The aid money is drying up in Port-Au-Prince (http://philanthropy.com/article/Charities-Have-Spent-Most-of/130223/ ). Of 35 major charities surveyed by the Chronicles of Philanthropy, 15 had less than US$200,000 or had spent all their Haiti aid money. The time has past to be focused on the basics. If you are going to help, don’t waste your money on sheds built out of 2 by 4s. Focus on permanent solutions that improve people’s lives and livelihoods, don’t settle for stopgaps that should have been finished 6 months after the quake.
It is time to get those larger systems in place leveraging what is left of the money pledged at the Donors Conference. The massive jobs programs. The micro-mortgage programs. The SME investment. The industry relocation. The agricultural renewal. The road rebuilding. Port and airport Revitalization. Grid development. Ecotourism development. Improving ease of doing business. Overhauling the courts. If these projects don’t get moving soon, the money available to the government won’t keep pace with the continued triage work that has already drained the aid community. If these projects move forward they will also help engage the diaspora. The diaspora are the silent lion for the redevelopment of Haiti. There are over 1 million Haitians and people of Haitian descent living abroad. These families send over US$2 billion annually in remittances back to the country. They want to invest but the economic climate in the country needs to improve. The Anger
If I seem angry it is because I am. No rational person in my situation wouldn’t be angry. Instead of trying to build a new Haiti, we fed people false promises of housing and T structures in government sanctioned wastelands right outside of Port-au-Prince. Financing has been stuck for reconstruction and training. In the meantime people rebuilding on their own have been doing so improperly with limestone “quarry sand” just perpetuating the risk in the next earthquake. There was a point for a few weeks after the quake when the international community had a real chance to capitalize on the migration out of Port-au-Prince and could have avoided a lot of this suffering. But we blew it in our focus on the camps.
I am angry that we broke our promises, that all of us, for however hard we worked, truly failed the people of Haiti in the scale of the response. Even the voices to the voiceless project (http://www.iomhaiti.net/flipbook2/index.php) has an empty echo to it these days, not updated, not followed up upon. The sad story of people’s sad stories, another echo of empty promises made to people after the quake, never fulfilled and nearly forgotten. It is time to own up to those failures and move the dialogue forward beyond stopgaps and T shelters and towards the future of the country.
60 Years of Human Rights: the Idea and the Reality Date: Human Rights Day, Wednesday December 10, 2008 Time: 6PM (Ticketed event) Location: JFK School, Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Speakers: Amartya Sen, Thomas W. Lamont University Professor and
Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University
Paul Farmer, Co-founder and Executive Vice President, Partners in Health;The Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine, Harvard University Medical School
President Drew Gilpin Faust (Moderator), Harvard University
Post-Forum concert:
Oumou Sangare, Oumou Sangare is Mali’s great diva, champion of women’s rights, and one of the world’s most astounding female voices
Go to WWW.IOP.HARVARD.EDU between Monday, December 1 & 12:00 noon on Monday, December 8. Winners will be notified via email on the evening of Monday, December 8. Winners must be available to pick-up their tickets on Tuesday, December 9 from 9:00 am-5:00 pm at the Institute of Politics.
Well, it’s one of the most effective health preventions you can make. And the World Bank and the World Health Organization has calculated that if you invest $1 in sanitation, then you reap $7 in health costs diverted and in labor days that are gained. Your workers are not off sick from diarrhea. So, it’s extremely cost effective. It’s actually a bargain.
the western world luxuriates in flush toilets; in toilets that play music or can check blood pressure, where the flush is a thoughtless thing, and anything that can go down a sewer - nappies, motorbikes, goldfish - does. In these times, Japanese women routinely use a device called a Flush Princess to mask the sound of their bodily functions; while in China millions of people happily use public toilets with no doors. The Big Necessity - as one Mumbai toilet builder called the toilet - is the account of my travels through the profoundly intriguing but stupidly neglected world of the disposal of human waste, which houses characters like Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization; Wang Ming Ying, who is attempting to alleviate environmental devastation and deforestation in China by persuading rural Chinese to install biogas digesters, which produce cooking gas from human feces; Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, whose NGO Sulabh has built half a million toilets in India, as well as the world’s only museum of toilets; and the flushers of London and New York’s sewers, who scoff at roaches but hate rats nearly as much as they hate congealed cooking fat and tri-ply toilet paper.
Where do the millions of computer monitors, cell phones and other electronic refuse our society generates end up?
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60 Minutes is going to take you to one of the most toxic places on Earth - a place government officials and gangsters don’t want you to see. It’s a town in China where you can’t breathe the air or drink the water, a town where the blood of the children is laced with lead.
It’s worth risking a visit because much of the poison is coming out of the homes, schools and offices of America. This is a story about recycling - about how your best intentions to be green can be channeled into an underground sewer that flows from the United States and into the wasteland.
Scott Pelley reports on the toxic e-waste recycling practices in China. A CBS team tracks a shipping container filled with CRT monitors being smuggled from the US to Hong Kong. They sneakily try to report on the conditions they come across in Guiyu, China, the cargo’s ultimate destination: poisoned air and water, increased cancer rates, government collusion. During the filming they get into a scuffle with business owners who are operating in the “illegal” (de jure - illegal, de facto - tolerated) cottage industry.
You know, it’s a hell of a choice between poverty and poison. We should never make people make that choice. - Jim Puckett, founder of the Basel Action Network
Developing countries are now facing a triple hit - food, fuel and finance, the World Bank President, Robert B Zoellick warned [October 09, 2008]. Speaking ahead of the annual meetings of the Bank and IMF, Mr Zoellick said governments must look beyond the financial crisis to contain a mounting human crisis that could push millions of the worlds poorest people to the brink of survival, and wipe out development gains.
Haiti in Harlem Date: September 29 - October 6 Location: Maysles Institute, 343 Malcolm X Boulevard / Lenox Avenue (between 127th and 128th Streets) Tickets: Suggested Admission: $7. Box office opens 1 hour before show time.
The Films
Monday, Sept. 29 7:30 pm Queimada (Burn!) with Marlon Brando
Dir. Gillo Pontecorvo (Battle of Algiers), 1969, 132 mins.
The German, Polish and French movie posters
Duration: 7 min 33 sec
A Caribbean island in the mid-1800’s. Nature has made it a paradise; man has made it a hell. Slaves on vast sugar plantations are ready to turn their misery into rebellion—and the British are ready to provide the spark. They send agent William Walker (Marlon Brando) on a devious three-part mission: trick the slaves into revolt, grab the sugar trade for England…then return the slaves to servitude. Colonialism and insurrection are explored in the searing epic BURN!. Both visually and narratively stunning, BURN! glows with the fires of filmmaking genius. Genius is also evident in Brando’s complex, intelligent portrayal of a man who is both gentlemen and scoundrel, revolutionary and colonialist. And Ennio Morricone’s (The Untouchables, The Mission) haunting music memorably underscores the almost overwhelmingly powerful story.
Six years in the making and filmed clandestinely under the Duvalier dictatorship, Bitter Cane is a timeless documentary classic about the exploitation and foreign domination of the Haitian people. From peasant coffee farms in the rugged tropical mountains to steamy U.S.-owned sweatshops in the teeming capital, the film takes the viewer on a journey through Haitian history to a deeper understanding of that country’s political economy. We see emerging paths of flight—industries from the U.S., refugees from Haiti—which are having profound effects on both societies. Director will be in attendence.
Wednesday, Oct. 1 7:30 pm Haiti: Killing the Dream
Dir. Katharine Kean, Rudi Stern, Babeth, Hart Perry 1992, 57 mins.
A stark, explosive look at a besieged neighboring country whose origins as the world’s first independent black republic have been obscured by decades of brutal repression. Here the Haitian people speak for themselves. They also speak through their deposed leader, Jean Bertrand Aristide, the country’s democratically elected president, who is now in exile. Haiti’s repression has been historically countenanced, if not inspired, by the United States, a posture that exists to this day.
Director will be in attendence.
This award-winning film chronicles the political events and human tragedy surrounding the 1991 military coup d’etat in Haiti and the bloody dictatorship that followed. It presents a searing indictment not only of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s role in the turmoil, but also that of the powerful and reclusive Haitian bourgeoisie. Unlike the mainstream media, Rezistans does not portray the Haitian people as helpless victims. It focuses instead on their creative and courageous resistance, and the deep roots of that resistance in Haitian history and culture. Director will be in attendence.
Nicolas Rossier’s powerful and informative documentary focuses on Aristide’s later years as president, as he struggled to fulfill his promises of reform in the face of mounting domestic opposition (driven in large part by business and military interests) and, simultaneously, an increasingly hostile relationship with the United States. Popular among Haiti’s poor and disenfranchised, Aristide became a target of Haiti’s business interests (and the political parties that served those interests) because of his daring policies which tried to raise the standard of living for the huge majority of Haitians. Director will be in attendence.
Friday, Oct. 3 9:00 pm Haiti: Democracy Undone
Dir. Peter Bull, Walt Bogdanich, Pascal Akesson, 2006, 57 mins.
Haiti: Democracy Undone presents new evidence that the U.S. had one foreign policy on Haiti but secretly carried out a very different policy - and that those mixed signals helped tilt the country toward chaos.
Saturday, Oct. 4 7:30 pm The Price of Sugar
Dir. Bill Haney, 2007, 90 mins.
Duration: 2 min 25 sec
In the Dominican Republic, a tropical island-nation, tourists flock to pristine beaches unaware that a few miles away thousands of dispossessed Haitians are toiling under armed guard on plantations harvesting sugarcane, much of which ends up in U.S. kitchens. They work grueling hours and frequently lack decent housing, clean water, electricity, education and healthcare. Narrated by Paul Newman, The Price of Sugar follows Father Christopher Hartley, a charismatic Spanish priest, as he organizes some of this hemisphere’s poorest people to fight for their basic human rights. This film raises key questions about where the products we consume originate and at what human cost they are produced. Director will be in attendence.
Sunday, Oct. 5 7:30 Man by the Shore (L’Homme sur les Quais) [NYTimes Review]
Dir. Raoul Peck, 1993, 106 mins.
Set in Haiti during the early sixties when François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s regime was consolidating its brutal control, The Man by the Shore is an eloquent account of the ways in which political oppression can saturate ones consciousness and infiltrate the details of everyday life.
Monday, Oct. 6 7:30 pm Pawol Granmoun
Dir. David Belle, 2002, 58 mins.
“Pawol Gran Moun” or “Words of the Elders” is the first part in a number of documentaries about traditional culture that Crowing Rooster Arts is currently producing in Haiti. This series aims to capture the lives, memories and traditions of Haiti’s older generations during a time when the country’s youth increasingly embraces foreign values and culture.
As traditional life and memory seem to be more and more jeopardized everywhere in the world, “Pawol Gran Moun” hopes to serve as a reminder that the wisdom and knowledge of our elders is essential to both our history and our future.
This first one hour segment is the portrait of three elder peasants: a tailor, a sailor and a Vodou priest. Through the story of each man’s life, the Haiti of yesterday and today meet, and the beauty of the way that life has been lived for generations lives on. Director will be in attendence.
Madame Tizo
Dir. David Belle, 2004, 64 mins.
Madame Tizo (Mrs. Little Bones) is a documentary portrait of a dynamic peasant healer from Jacmel, Haiti. The film tells the story of an extraordinary Haitian elder who runs the equivalent of a rural health clinic from her modest thatched roof hut situated near the Jacmel River. While taking care of numerous relatives and neighbors who depend upon her, Mrs. Little Bones or Mother Bones, as friends know her, simultaneously works as a midwife and leaf doctor for an endless stream of men, women and children who find their way to her yard seeking relief from their maladies. Humorous, mysterious and insightful, the film offers a rare glimpse into the traditional life of Haitian peasants. A reality where faith in the spirit world is central to resolving problems and where access to modern medicine is extremely limited. Director will be in attendence.
Former ab-fab community outreach intern, Katie Bliss, is back in the UK (sniff!), but she wrote me about Massukos, a popular band from Mozambique who have a strong commitment to humanitarian work in their country and abroad. She met one of the band members, Feliciano dos Santos, while she was in Cuba last month.
Dos Santos was one of 2008’s Goldman Environmental Prize winners [visit the site to see a short video profile]:
Using music to spread the message of ecological sanitation to the most remote corners of Mozambique, Feliciano dos Santos is empowering villagers to participate in sustainable development and rise up from poverty. In Niassa province, many villages lack even basic sanitation infrastructure. Without reliable access to clean water and waste management systems, the population is highly susceptible to disease. Santos, who grew up in the region, today heads an innovative program that is bringing new hope to Niassa. With his internationally-recognized band, Massukos, Santos uses music to promote the importance of water and sanitation in Mozambique. His program is now serving as a model for other sustainable development programs around the world.
Feliciano dos Santos Goldman Acceptance Speech and Song
Duration: 5min 8sec
Dos Santos along with the rest of Massukos and several other international artists have banded together for an Poo tour “to promote, educate and facilitate a wider understanding of life’s basic necessities – principally sanitation and clean water – in Africa”.
If you are in the UK and going to the Glastonbury festival (lucky devil), check Massukos out at the Jazz World Stage on Saturday, June 28th.
At the end of March, we and our community partner, SOIL, finished 2 urine-diverting dry toilets (a.k.a. ecosan toilets) in Shada, Cap-Haitien.
Here is part 2 of the pictorial how-to. You can find Part 1 here.
Building the stairs.
Molds for the toilet holes and pouring the concrete floor. Four plastic buckets are used to form the mold for where the toilet holes will be located for the 2 chambers. The concrete is poured and allowed to cure.
Lids for unused toilet holes.
Building the toilet house out of concrete block.
Finishing touches. The roof and door are added as well as a few accents. The chambers are sealed.
Urine Diverting Toilet and Urinal
Unfinished interior with urinal and 2 toilets (1 for adults, 1 for children). The simple urinal was constructed from cement with a wooden mold.
Urine collection drum and air vent. Hoses drain urine into the urine collection drum.
Pa jete fatra andedan twalet la!!! Don’t throw trash in the toilet. Latrine design allows for natural light and ventilation.
Squat Eco-san toilet with a bamboo superstructure in India
Duration: 2min 2sec
This squat latrine also has an area for cleansing.
Ecosan toilet in Bangalore
4min 47sec
Ecosan toilet in an urban area and that too on a first floor.The source separating pan ensures that urine and faeces is collected separately. The system has been designed for the Indian condition,squatters (not sitters) and washers(not wipers). A rainwater collection system collects rain from he roof into a barrel. The water for ablution purpose comes entirely from rain. A Tippy Tap dispenses water in small doses for cleansing. The urine itself is used as a fertilizer for plants and the faeces composted for application to soil. The Ecosan system is a water conserving,resource generating and pollution preventing system, good for urban areas and rural places especially.
Dry Toilet-Barrio La Vega, Venezuela
This clip is too short to tell you enough about the system, however the rain water catchment system to include, presumably for handwashing, is a great idea.
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