Hello Milli,

Thank you very much for your message, I am glad you enjoyed the video.

Regarding the questions you had:

- Yes, the toilet waste can be used as a fertilizer. Toilet users are trained on how to use the toilets properly as well as in harvesting and safe use of the 'humanure' produced. Our aim is to have more people using and/or selling this 'humanure' as fertilizer, which is very important especially in a highly agricultural country as Malawi.

- The ecological toilets use a urine diversion system. Only the solid waste goes to the chambers for composting, the urine is diverted with a soak away pit system.

- The 'action-research approach' is, as you say, a valuable method that we have been using for some time. You can find more information about the SHARE research project here www.shareresearch.org/

- In terms of the solid waste you see in the video. Waste management is a big problem in the country, where the government services for collection are minimum or inexistent. Most solid waste (around 70%) produced is organic, and the are building the capacity of community groups to set up enterprises to recycle this and produce compost manure, which they can then sell and generate income. In some areas, we support community groups are collecting waste (plastics in particular) and selling them to private recycling companies, whilst others are learning to produce recycled products from waste.

I hope this has helped to clarify some of your questions, and please be in touch if you require any further information.

Best wishes,

Mariana.-

Hi Mariana,

thanks for sharing insights of your work.

I am interested in the measures you take. As far as I understood, you construct more dry toilets and let people use soil and ash as cover material. Additionally, the new built toilets offer the possibility to use the excreta as fertiliser?

I am confused by the "UDDT"-title. I did not see any urine-diversion in the video.

Furthermore I am interested in the "action research approach". Sounds like a good method to me, collecting data with the community for further research and at the same time taking action to improve the sanitation situation.

I am wondering about the solid waste that gets thrown in the environment. Is there any concept how to handle this?

Best regards,
milli

Hello Everyone,

I am the Knowledge Management Officer for the Centre for Community Organisation and Development (CCODE), a Malawian NGO that works in rural and urban settlements in the country, in alliance with the Federation of the Rural and Urban Poor.

Part of my work here is to document and disseminate further our work. An important part of this is what we do to improve water and sanitation conditions of the urban poor, a pressing issue in the country - this work is done both in terms of practical interventions and applied research, in order to set precedents for future work.

I would like to share with you our latest video featuring the work of CCODE and the Federation of the Rural and Urban Poor in Blantyre (Malawi) on the SHARE research project, as well as the challenges that the country faces in terms of sanitation, water and hygiene.

The video is available here:



CCODE and the Federation of the Rural and Urban Poor (formerly Malawi's Homeless People's Federation, which is a grassroots network) have been working as an alliance to support poor communities in Malawi to improve their living conditions since 2003. Both CCODE and the Federation are the country affiliates to Slum/Shack Dwellers International (SDI).

Since 2010, the alliance has implemented SHARE (Sanitation and Hygiene Applied for Equity), a five-year project that aims to accelerate progress on sanitation and hygiene in developing countries by generating rigorous and relevant research, and ensuring new and existing solutions are adopted at scale. Our research took an action research approach.

SHARE's research underway in Malawi has focused on Ecological Sanitation (EcoSan), which has been heavily promoted in urban areas. Blantyre in Malawi is also one of the cities included in the City-Wide Sanitation Project. It also looks, in particular to the implications for sanitation markets and health - two of SHARE's research pillars. The consortium's more general research activities, including international meetings and global studies, are also relevant because of the severity of Malawi's sanitation and hygiene challenges. The consortium is represented in Malawi - one of SHARE's four focus countries - by WaterAid Malawi and CCODE.

If you have further questions about this project and our work please don't hesitate to ask me in a reply post in this thread. Thank you and I look forward to your comments.