Composting Latrine Project

November 30^th , 2011 was one of the most memorable days of my service.  This one day encompassed my desire to join the Peace Corps:  professional development work and personal adventures.  In the morning my Health Committee presented to the community a Composting Latrine project that we designed together, and in the afternoon we went hunting in the jungle.

The Committee members presented the idea of Composting Latrines (usage and maintenance), how they could improve health, and the benefit to their agricultural products.  They also presented a Work Plan, which is to solicit an agency for 4 latrines to be built at the Committee member’s homes.  Rules for participation were also given, and exactly what each family will contribute to the project.

The rules are:

1.  Attend 3 Health Talks
2.  Carry materials and participate in all work days to build latrines
3.  Sufficient wood to build the enclosure for the latrine, before construction begins
4.  Have 3 sacs of dry material to be used for composting, before construction beings.
5.  Each family pays $5 to the Treasurer, which they will receive in return if they participate in all days of work.  If they miss a day of work, they will not receive their $5, and in turn have to pay $10.

Family Contribution

To show the agencies that the community really wants latrines, each family is going to put down all the wood necessary to build the latrine, as well as manual labor.  Including materials and manual labor, each latrine costs about $500.

Peace Corps as a Bridge

The project is designed to solicit Panamanian Agencies with a long-term agenda for developing Composting Latrines.  I have given PowerPoint presentations on Composting Latrines to the PASAP, the Panamanian Minsitry of Health’s Water and Sanitation wing.  After the first 4 latrines are built, the Health Committee needs to give updates on the progress of the project.  Once those updates are given, the community and the agency can then work together on a bigger project.  Thus bridging the community and the agency, and removing Peace Corps from the process entirely.

Processes and Friendships

The goal is to take the Health Committee through the process of designing, soliciting, maintaining a Pilot Project of 4 latrines.  After the community sees how the latrine works, the Health Committee initiates the same process to solicit a bigger project.  This allows for a greater impact on health because the community will see their neighbors properly using a latrine, and hopefully follow.  For a community that is consistently handed out projects, this project will be one that they themselves initiated and executed.  Finally, it gives a sense of pride and ownership that they haven’t ever felt before.  Everybody loves accomplishing a challenge.

After the meeting my close friends Atilio and Misael were elated.  We looked at each other and said – “Let’s go hunting!”  We blast out on the Chucunaque River with rifles, machetes, and dogs.  As we are riding up river, they both said to me:  “Moises, I never thought that I would be up in front of my community presenting a project…”

Sitting there on the piragua, filing my machete, I had never felt more satisfied.

Health Committee Training

During November, I trained my Health Committee on Sanitation issues.  I found 5 community members who wanted to participate on the Committee, who will relay what we learned to the community, and start a pilot project.  I’ve been living in Alto Playón for a little over a year now, and I’m finally at the point where I have reliable people to work with me.   We started a group in December 2010, but it completely failed.  Nobody would show up to meetings, and weren’t really interested in working together.  I was able to find the right people by doing a Bucket Latrine presentation and Environmental Health Workshops.

The greatest part is that my host sister, Irasema Guainora, asked to join the committee the morning that we started the training.  She is really interested in composting latrines and I’m excited to have a woman on the committee.

WASH Index

I started off by teaching them about the WASH Index, which is a way to appraise the current Water and Sanitation situation.  After using the matrix to analyze the community, it was evident to the Committee that there was a lot of work to be done.  I also hope that this self-analysis will serve to have them view their community in a different way.  It also serves as a way to track the progress of the Sanitation situation in the community.

	MUCHO TRABAJO	HAY TRABAJO	NO TRABAJO	Fecha:	Fecha:	Fecha:
LETRINAS	No hay letrinas;  La gente usan el monte o el rio	Algunos tienen letrinas.  Son mantenidas mas o menos.	Todo de la comunidad tienen letrinas.  Son mantenidas buenas.
DRENAJE	No hay sistemas de drenaje.  Mucha agua estancada con cria de mosquitos.	Algunos tienen un sistema de drenaje.  Hay varios lugares con agua estancada.	Todos tienen sistemas de drenaje.  No hay agua estancada.
RESIDUOS SOLIDOS	No hay sistema de mantener residuos solidos.  Hay mucha basura en las calles.	Un sistema de mantener residuos solidos ha empezado.  Hay poquita basura en las calles.	La sistema de mantener residuos solidos esta funcionando.  No hay basura en la calle.
LAVA MANOS	No hay Tippy-Taps.	Algunos tienen y usan Tippy-Taps con jabon.	Todos tienen y usan Tippy-Taps con jabon.

Sanitation Topics

The training was based on 4 sanitation topics:

Drainage Systems

Solid Waste

Latrines

Hand Washing

For Drainage Systems, I spoke about making soak pits, which is essentially digging a hole in the ground and filling it with sand and medium sized rocks.  Having a soak pit below the washing area can remove standing water, which is a breeding ground for mosquitoes and smells awful. Although the ground water table is high in our community, the soak pit I have is working well.

Since Alto Playón is rural, the community needs to manage their own Solid Waste.  I first educated them on Reducing their trash and then Reusing their trash via composting and/or making useful things.  With all the rest of their waste, I introduced making an Incinerator out of metal tanks.  This way people can deposit their trash there, burn it in a single, high temperature location, and then bury the ash.  Burning trash is NOT an environmentally friendly option.  However, in our situation it will keep the community clean and reduce disease transmission via mosquitoes.

We then talked about Latrines.  I first covered disease transmission and how open defecation in the jungle and in the river is harmful to health.  Everyone on the Health Committee was essentially there because they are interested in Composting Latrines, and all of the previous promotion had paid off.

Finally, we covered the importance of Hand Washing, after using the bathroom, before eating, before preparing food, and the hands of the kids.  I introduced a Tippy-Tap which is a hanging gallon of water which allows them to wash their hands.

We covered each of the 4 topics in depth and I gave them a Pre-Test and a Post-Test.  They were most interested in working on Composting Latrines and we started to develop a Work Plan and a project to present to the community.

Designing a Project that WORKS

For the last few months I’ve been doing my best to design a Composting Latrine project with my community.  I have done a lot of Health Promotion and Bucket Latrine demonstrations in the past, which has raised consciousness of the community.  It has also helped me find my current Health Committee President, Atilio Guianora, who took a 3 day Project Management & Leadership course with me.

But how do I then translate a few educated and motivated people into developing infrastructure for an entire community, and continue to grow leaders?  If I were to follow the development norm in rural Panamá, I would solicit a big latrine project for everyone.  If I wanted to be a bit more strict, I could ask people to come to meetings and only those who came to meetings would then be part of the project.  That may work, but there are too many factors to make things go wrong:  people not showing up to work days, not viewing the project as their own but as “Peace Corps Project”, and the worst is that they might not even use the latrine.

I’m more interested in initiating a Community Action Cycle.  Designing a project that can be run by community members - first along with me on a small scale, and then independently on a larger scale. 

Initiating Behavior Change

In order to improve health, you’ve got to get people to change their behavior.  Placing infrastructure in front of them won’t do it.  Behavior change needs to come from within a few, and can come from the rest following a good example.  I thought it would be best to start with only a few latrines for those who chose to sit on a Health Committee.  I would train the Health Committee on Sanitation issues and how to design a project.  They would be the example for the community not only on how to build, maintain, and use the latrine, BUT how to participate in a community wide project.  When they see their neighbor using something new, they will hopefully be more interested in having their own

Making Things Exclusive

Why does Steve Jobs only release a limited amount of iPhones at first?  Exclusivity.  Release a few, intrigue the many. I am hoping that by only a few members having a composting latrine, the rest of the community will be interested in having one as well.