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Shewa Robit – Water & hygiene

Offering a future through water and hygiene

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Project Information

  • Activities:
    – Community showers and toilets
    – Construction of biogas-powered WASH cafés
    – Development of waste management and recycling
    – Sensitization campaigns for hygiene
  • Target groups: Town dwellers, destitute women, women driven into prostitution by poverty
  • Region: Shewa Robit, Amhara
  • Partner: Emmanuel Development Association (EDA)
  • Duration: 3 years

Project Goal

Project Description

PROJECT AIMS

Improving the worst sanitary situations with innovative approaches. And at the same time helping poor people to find ways to earn money – particularly helping women find alternatives to prostitution. Our concrete goals are:

  • Reducing the illnesses caused by hygiene problems by 50 percent
  • Reducing the pollution in built-up areas by 60 percent
  • Reducing prostitution by 20 percent
  • Creating work for at least 200 young men and women
  • Reducing the use of firewood by 20 percent

 

ACTIVITIES

  • Building community toilets and showers
  • Setting up and organizing WASH cafés run with Biogas
  • Setting up and organizing a waste disposal and recycling facility

 

MfM CH Aethiopien Feb. 2015
MfM CH Aethiopien Feb. 2015
MfM CH Aethiopien Feb. 2015
MfM CH Aethiopien Feb. 2015
MfM CH Aethiopien Feb. 2015
MfM CH Aethiopien Feb. 2015
MfM CH Aethiopien Feb. 2015

THE PROJECT

Menschen für Menschen Switzerland is improving the situation with WASH initiatives (the project name encompasses “water”, “sanitary facilities” and “hygiene”). The foundation is setting up community toilets for hundreds of families with its local partner: these are usually facilities with 12 cubicles, where three families share the key for one cubicle.

Known as WASH cafés, people living in the towns or just passing through can use the toilets and showers situated at traffic junctions for a small fee. Waste water is fed into underground tanks. The resulting Biogas is used to run the attached restaurant kitchen.

These restaurants are run by women in cooperatives. The sanitation projects are also an innovative way to support women and develop business opportunities, offering an alternative source of income for former prostitutes in particular.

Destitute locals who have no other source of income can set up a new cooperative with the aim of removing or processing rubbish: creating briquettes for the daily cooking fires. Menschen für Menschen Switzerland and EDA support the cooperatives with the equipment they need, as well as courses on business and skilled trades.

The Problem

Shewa Robit, a city of around 50,000 inhabitants, is at the mercy of a particularly disastrous sanitary situation. 47% of households have no toilet or latrine. With no toilet facilities, thousands of people use wasteland or the wide mouth of the river that flows through the city – the same river where many residents have no alternative but to bath and wash their clothes in.

There is no municipal waste collection. The waste is burned in alleys, with a harmful impact on health, or deposited on illegal sites at the edge of the city. The lack of adequate sanitary provision leads to many bacterial and viral infections and to infestations of worms and other parasites. According to health authorities, around half of the illnesses in the city can be traced back to the poor hygiene conditions.

The narrow alleys are packed with pubs where the waitresses also work as prostitutes. The young women often sell their bodies because they have no other way to feed themselves and their children.

Project Information

  • Activities:
    – Community showers and toilets
    – Construction of biogas-powered WASH cafés
    – Development of waste management and recycling
    – Sensitization campaigns for hygiene
  • Target groups: Town dwellers, destitute women, women driven into prostitution by poverty
  • Region: Shewa Robit, Amhara
  • Partner: Emmanuel Development Association (EDA)
  • Duration: 3 years

Project Goal