WATER AND SANITATION PROGRAM

Bangladesh has made a significant progress in improved water and sanitation facilities. However, according to recent report published by WHO/UNICEF, 68.3 million people lack safety managed sanitation facilities in Bangladesh. Moreover, 61.7 million people do not have access to basic hygiene in the country. Furthermore, 107 million people in Bangladesh do not have basic handwashing facilities with soap and water at home. Additionally, almost half of schools in Bangladesh do not have facilities for washing hands with soap and water.

Therefore, strengthening the efforts to achieve the SDG goal 6 is necessary from the government, NGOs, and other stakeholders.
WEDO has been implementing water and Sanitation projects for more than ten years in the community level. The organization started its water and sanitation activities in 2009 with a project titled “Secondary Towns Water Supply & Sanitation Sector Project (STWSSP)” in Netrokona and Sunamganj pourashaba (Municipality). The two years long project successfully conducted baseline survey, pipeline survey, awareness raising activities and training. Within the years, WEDO has been working with the community people to provide support them with sanitary latrine installation, tube-well installation, deep-tube well installation, provide training to the famers who are affected by the salinity in water in coastal region for alternative water resources, capacity building of the disaster affected vulnerable women in the coastal region who are affected by the climate change. The organization has also been working to improve the water and sanitation condition of the aboriginal families by providing them innovative environment friendly economical removable long run latrine in Joypurhat district. Moreover, the organization has provided deep tube-well to the arsenic contaminated community people of the Gopalganj district. Furthermore, WEDO distribute and install tube-well and sanitary latrine among the community people of the Haor (a wetland ecosystem in the northeastern part of Bangladesh) region of Bangladesh.

Innovative Environment Friendly Economical Removable Long Run Latrine for the Aboriginal families

The project is implemented in one upazilla (subdistrict) named Joypurhat sader, where the organization has existing development programs. Due to cultural barriers and other factors, the aboriginal population of the area are isolated from the mainstream of national development. It is observed that aboriginal people in the area are habituated to go open field for natural call. The organization has conducted health and sanitation issues-based survey and the result revealed that some other NGOs are providing them some conventional latrine which within few days get out-of-order to use and left in an unhygienic environment. Because of the financial challenges, the aboriginal families cannot rebuild the latrine. Ultimately, they go back to practice open field for the natural call. Many aboriginal community people including the women and children are being affected by various water and air borne diseases.

The conventional open disordered latrine pollutes the environment and threat to the health security and over all development. Besides, majority of the aboriginal people are not aware about the use of safe and hygienic sanitation system.
Therefore, this project aims to improve the sanitation condition of the aboriginal community people by providing them environment friendly sanitary latrine and raise the awareness among them by the end of the project in June 2021.
The direct beneficiaries of the are the 152 aboriginal/adibasi families of Joypurhat sader Upazilla of Joypurhat District.

Major Activities of the Project:

Baseline survey
Selection of beneficiaries
Installation of environment friendly sanitary latrine (152 No, of Latrine)
Installation of Tube-Well (I0 No. of Tube-Well; 6 families/Tube-Well)
Awareness raising to use latrine and training on how to use the latrine
Hand wash training (awareness and practical demonstration) to the school children
Monitoring and evaluation

Partner and financed by: Our vision for Welfare Service (OVWS), Global Construction Limited (under CSR), Bangladesh Connections USA, and a generous French Citizen from France.
Duration: July 2020 to September 2021
Project Strategy: The project is managed by participatory approach. Health group is formed in the community level. The group actively participated in the project activities. Each latrine consists of 10 rings, one slab with pan, one slab for cover, and one removable tin shed house. 5 rings are placed inside a hole and 5 rings are placed inside another hole, slab with pan is kept top of a ring which is used for first time and over of this ring slab a removable tin shed house is placed, another hole with 5 rings is covered by another slab to use as second stage. When the first one is full of waste the slab with pan will replace to other empty ring and the shed also will be replace on the empty ring and the 1^st one with ring which full of waste will be covered with the clay and covered with the replaced slab for five to six months to recycle as compost fertilizer.

Deep Tube Well Installation for the Arsenic Affected People of Kotalipara, Gopalganj district

Groundwater arsenic contamination has been identified as a major public health issue in Bangladesh. It is estimated that fifty (50) million Bangladeshis are at risk of arsenic poisoning from drinking water from contaminated tubewells. Arsenicosis is caused by chronic arsenic exposure and may include multi-organ pathologies.WEDO is association with OVWS has installed 10 deep tube well at Ramshil area of Katalipara, Gopalganj district of Bangladesh for protecting the villagers from the risk of exposure to arsenicthough consumption of water from the existing contaminated tube wells. The village, Purbo Ramshil is located under severe arsenic affected area of Kotalipara.

A total of ten (10) deep tube well is installed in the project area. Each tube well is covered by 16 number of families.

Duration of the project: 01 Year (Jan – Dec 2021)
Assistance from: KOINONIA, OVWS and WEDO’s own fund.

Promoting access to safe water and improved sanitation in Haor areas

Haor is a wetland ecosystem in the northeastern part of Bangladesh which physically is a bowl or saucer shaped shallow depression, also known as a backswamp. The region is characterised by low levels of access to improved sanitation facilities as compared with other parts of Bangladesh. Flash flooding inundates the Haor Basin for an average of six months every year, that makes the situation worse. Despite the existence of tubewells close to most households in the region, the majority of households still collect domestic washing water from open water bodies which sources are often contaminated with pathogens.

Problems of water and sanitation associated with poor hygiene behaviours, which are often exacerbated during the period of seasonal flooding, result in the notably high incidence of water-borne diseases in the Haor region. WEDO has been working to address issues relating to water and sanitation by means of promoting awareness-raising activities, installation of tube-well and sanitary latrine. The organization promotes improved hygiene practices, such as ensuring handwashing before the preparation of food, ensuring the adequate disposal of small children’s faeces etc.

Location of the Project: Netrokona and Sunamganj District
Funding: United Effort for Rural Development (UERD), Bangladesh NGO Foundation, Global Construction Limited (under CSR)
Major Activities:

Latrine Installation
Tube-well Installation
Awareness raising

Duration of the project: 2009 to till date
Achievement in 2020-2021:

4 deep tube well installation; Derai upazila (Sub district). Household: 10 family/deep tube-well
160 full sanitary latrine installation
Handwash training among primary school children in 10 schools (approx. 1500 students)
Stakeholders training on toilet use before and after (450 women)

Capacity building of the salinity affected farmers in the coastal upazilas (sub-district) under smallholder Agricultural Competitiveness Project (SACP)

For thousands of people in coastal Bangladesh, collecting rainwater has become the only source of obtaining drinking water as the changing climate has increased the salinity in local groundwater. This project is being implemented by WEDO in the coastal district of Patuakhali. The goal of the project is to provide training to the farmers of the district on Postharvest and Primary Processing.

However, considering the significance of the water issue, WEDO additionally provide training on Rainwater Harvesting and Management to eighty (80) batches of farmers, each batch consists of 25 farmers (Total No. of Farmers: 2000) The project has been implemented from April 2021 to June 2021 and from April 2022 to June 2022. The project is supported by DAM, Ministry of Agriculture. However, the water part is supported by WEDO’s own fund.