Latrine Project Update

When I returned from the Gambia Workshop on April 19^th, my work partner and I held a village meeting to discuss about latrine options in Dassalami Soce. The people decided to have latrines built in their households. There are 403 households in my community. For more information, read the baseline survey report posted in this blog. There will also be two latrines built in the schools of my community. Men and women gave money during the meeting and the others gave the money to my ASC who is holding on to it until we receive the money from Appropriate Projects. The men decided to contribute 7500cfa for the latrines and would be responsible to bring sand and water for the mason. Throughout this week, all the heads of households have contributed for the construction of the latrines. I am sending my Appropriate Project application at the end of this week. To learn more about this organization, click on the link below: http://appropriateprojects.com/

Another sweet deal is that the mason responsible to build those latrines would bring all the materials (cement, gravel, etc…) and the families would not have to give additional money. They are only helping to pay the mason’s manual labor. The mason only needs for the population to bring him water to mix the ciment and the gravel.

Based on the results of the baseline survey, we concluded to install public latrines in the schools of Dassalami and not for the whole village because there are cultural barriers surrounding latrines in my community. If you are interested in reading more on this matter, click on the following link: Toward Total Sanitation: Socio-cultural barriers and triggers to total sanitation in West Africa:http://www.communityledtotalsanitation.org/sites/communityledtotalsanitation.org/files/media/Towards_Total_Sanitation_-_barriers_and_triggers_in_West_Africa.pdf

This article really hits the ballpoint in terms of showing how people think and what might drive them not to implement certain behaviors like washing their hands and using latrines. I am also thinking of submitting a Peace Corps Partnership grant to fundraise more money to complete the project besides the financial contribution of the population. We are planning to start the construction of the latrines next month. Below I have provided the WASH organizations in Senegal.

Senegal Water and Sanitation Organisations:

1.  WATER AND SANITATION IN AFRICA (WSA)

2.  WATER AID

3.  UNICEF

4.  PLAN INTERNATIONAL

5.  WORLD VISION

6.  CARITAS

7.  SERVICE INTERNATIONALE DE L’HYGIENE (SNH)

8.  PEPAM

9.  USAID PEPAM

10.JICA