Tomorrow is World Toilet Day and here, Katie Whitehouse looks at how building a toilet isn’t the end of the story and we need sustainable approaches to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH). Building a toilet and marking it as a metric achieved is relatively easy. Building a toilet and ensuring that it is continuously serviced and the waste collected transported …
Responding to our toilet duties: An important subject!
Sanitation in emergency contexts must consider a diverse range of social, environmental, cultural and economic parameters. Jenny Lamb explores what this means for Oxfam and for Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) practitioners more broadly. From the Haiti earthquake in Port-au-Prince to the refugee crisis in Ethiopia and the displacement of communities in South Sudan every new situation presents us with challenges. …
The impatient optimist: Urine-tricity to light humanitarian camps
In this blog we’re introduced to two sides of the ‘Urine-tricity’ story. Firstly, we hear from Oxfam’s Head of Water and Sanitation Andy Bastable, who shares his eager observations on the project, which produces electrical power from urine. To conclude, Ioannis Ieropoulos, Professor of Bioenergy and Self-sustainable Systems at University of the West of England, maps out the history of the research …
Overcoming social barriers: A journey by women WASH platform
In this latest blog Ashish Barua explains how the all female ‘Women WASH Platform’ has broken down social barriers to encourage better practice in Bangladesh. “We install latrines inside the heads of people” Rina Begum, member of Surjodoy Community Based Organisation (CBO) from Bakshigonj upazilla in the Jamalpur district, almost bombed into the discussion. “You install it inside peoples’ heads?” …