Joel Trotter describes how it feels to see Oxfam’s brand-new handwashing kit tested, refined, and ready to go into action. Oxfam’s Promotion and Practice Handwashing Kit is a robust, user-friendly handwashing station that is easily assembled in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. It allows for improved, timely handwashing and reduces people’s health risks in emergency displacement camps. It was …
Reinventing the toilet
Brian McSorley on Oxfam’s contribution to ensuring the poorest people on the planet have access to a loo. Earlier this month, Bill Gates stood up to address an international conference holding a jar full of human faeces. In a sector that has been underfunded and overlooked for decades, The Gates Foundation has been a disruptive and positive force in raising …
Taking emergency water, sanitation and hygiene to market
Esther Shaylor explains how Oxfam is working with other NGOs to share learning about providing emergency water, sanitation and hygiene using local markets. In recent years there has been a change in how we deliver humanitarian aid. The humanitarian sector as a whole is moving away from distributing food and other items, and, through research and practice, is working out …
Podcast: Emergency sanitation in focus
[buzzsprout episode=’2559244′ player=’true’] Esther Shaylor talks to Andy Bastable, Oxfam’s expert on public health engineering, about the challenge of providing sustainable sanitation in emergencies. What happens when toilets in camps are not well planned out? How and why should tiger worms and urine dry diversion toilets be used? Find out more: Our work on water, sanitation and hygiene
All these unused toilets – who are we building them for?
Going to the toilet is one of the most dangerous things you can do as a woman living in a refugee camp. That’s why we’re conducting research into the use of lighting to promote safety around latrines and wash facilities, for World Toilet Day Kerry Akers and Julie Lafrenière share the key findings so far. These shocking quotes are from people …
Sustainable emergency sanitation – no longer a pipe dream!
How do you install safe and sustainable toilets in crowded refugee camps which are on boggy or rocky ground? We might have the answer. For World Toilet Day Lucy Polson discusses the merits of the urine diversion dry toilet and the tiger worm toilet. How can we build sustainable and user-friendly toilet options for refugee camps? It’s an ongoing challenge …
Tiger worms: the little sanitation engineers
Could tiger worms be the answer to some of the challenges of providing toilets in refugee and displaced people camps? Oxfam is conducting a pilot project to find out, working with the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in camps in Myanmar. ‘What do you think about worms? Would you be comfortable working with worms?’ Bagus Setyawan from Oxfam’s Global …
Taking a toilet break: on the railway line
Having unmet needs for water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) not only endangers life, it can negatively affect all aspects of daily existence, and women and girls suffer the most. Editor, Caroline Sweetman, introduces the WASH issue of the Gender & Development journal. Imagine you’re a teenage girl, dying to go to the loo – but you can’t, until your mother …
Podcast – Tiger worms: An innovative solution to sanitation
[buzzsprout episode=’2559256′ player=’true’] In the first of our new podcast series on humanitarian learning, we’re diving into the world of tiger worms. Oxfam’s Sophie Mack Smith talks to Angus McBride, Public Health Engineering Team Leader. Speaking to her from Ethiopia, Angus tells us how these worms are being tested in refugee camps and why they could be the answer to some of …
Help! My toilet is sinking!
Louise Medland, Carol Brady and Jessica Fullwood-Thomas examine the long term effects of annual flooding and waterlogging on people’s lives in Bangladesh. Heavy rainfall during July and August in 2011 caused severe flooding in southern districts of Bangladesh, particularly Satkhira, Jessore, Khulna and Cox’s Bazar. Close to 90% of the population were temporarily displaced from their homes and were forced …
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