Ratio of toilets to students

Q: I am working on a DFID funded primary school sanitation project in Nigeria and would appreciate advice on the ratio of toilets to students to use.  Is 1 toilet to 40 students adequate?

Answer: “In some references, a rough standard used is a ratio of one facility for 20 students although in some countries the standard might be as high as one facility for 50 students.” This is a quote from a good booklet on school toilets:

Mooijman, A. and Zomerplaag, J. (2004). Child-friendly hygiene and sanitation facilities in schools : indispensible to effective hygiene education. Delft, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. Available at: http://www.irc.nl/content/view/full/9587

In this book you will find the following about ratio of school children to toilets:

“In some references, a rough standard used is a ratio of one facility for 20 students although in some countries the standard might be as high as one facility for 50 students. In addition, there are some other important factors when defining the exact number of facilities necessary:

• How many girls and how many boys are there? It is recommended that at least half of the facilities are urinals. They are much cheaper than toilets and have a shorter waiting time. Where pits are used, providing urinals will extend the lifespan of the pits considerably and will cause less overall odour if they are well designed.
• Are children allowed to use the toilets during classes or only during breaks? When facilities are only used during breaks, there will be peaks in usage and therefore the capacity needs to be higher.
• How many breaks are there? When there are few breaks the capacity needs to be higher than when there are more breaks, because children have fewer opportunities to use the facilities.
• Do all classes begin and end at the same time? When timetables are different, fewer facilities are required. The ‘highest peak’ for usage has to be determined.
• Will the number of students expand considerably in the future? What is the expected proportion between girls and boys?
• Are there users with disabilities? Do they need specific design adaptations for sanitation facilities, hand washing or water access?
• Do female/male teachers prefer to have their own facilities with sufficient privacy?”

Please note: An important aspect is menstrual hygiene. This should be taken into account while thinking about toilets and facilities.

“Girls need to change their sanitary napkins regularly during the period of menstruation especially in the first two to three days. The vast majority of girls use cloth pads usually torn from old saris, instead of sanitary towels/napkin. These cloth pads are washed and used several times. There is no private place to change and clean them and often no safe water and soap to wash them properly. A culture of shame and embarrassment forces them to seek for well hidden places even in their homes to dry these clothes. These places are often damp, dark and unhealthy. This practice is responsible for a significant proportion of illness and infection associated with female reproductive health. Very often serious infections are left untreated. Menstruation as a regular process needs hygienic management. ” (Unicef India, 2008).  Also, or maybe even especially at schools!

 See for more information on this, a nice booklet by Unicef:

India. Department of Drinking Water Supply -IN (2008). Sharing simple facts : useful information about menstrual health and hygiene. New Delhi, India, UNICEF.
P27-29 are on menstrual hygiene management in schools. http://www.irc.nl/docsearch/title/168685

Finance database

Q: I am working on a finance database and was wondering what is out there already. Where can I start collecting data for such a database? (Consultant for NWP)

Answer: 

I suggest that you take a look at the resource page on our web site about Donors and financing – http://www.irc.nl/page/25726 which includes a sub-category on Bilateral donors – http://www.irc.nl/page/25729 (the list needs updating so not all links may work).

The OECD DAC maintains aid statistics on water and sanitation – http://www.oecd.org/dac/stats/water and they have produced a list of  Donor Profiles on Aid to Water Supply and Sanitation (PDF, Nov 2008).

The European Union Water Initiative (EUWI) had previously developed an online finance guide, but this is no longer available – you may wish to contact the EUWI Finance Working Group to hear what has happened to the database – http://financeguide.euwi.net/wg/finance

Latrines for the disabled

Q: I am looking for standard designs for disabled latrines in rural areas. Such as dimensions, wheelchair access, design of toilet seat, handrails, ramp, door width, …… (Caritas Switzerland, South Sudan)

Answer: A nice start may be the 4 page-article Construction of a wheelchair friendly toilet for the disabled, by Cleophas Musara of Mvuramanzi Trust, Zimbabwe.

Another article which may interest you is:

Bannister, M. (2004). ‘Disability and gender in rural sanitation‘. In: Godfrey, S. (ed.) (2005). People-centred approaches to water and environmental sanitation : proceedings of the 30th WEDC Conference, Vientiane, Lao PDR, 25-29 October 2004 . Loughborough, UK, WEDC, Loughborough University of Technology.

There is one design of a latrine for disabled in this article.

Finally, the project web site of WEDC on water supply and sanitation for disabled and other vulnerable groups may also provide useful information and contacts: http://wedc.lboro.ac.uk/research/project.html?p=12

Community participation and local finance

Q: I am conducting fieldwork on several case studies where community participation and local finance are used to supply clean water and/or sanitation. I would like to have some information on the use of microfinance techniques for water and sanitation. (Doctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute, Germany)

Answer:

You may also want to take a look at these documents:

1) Financing sanitation in poor urban areas

This essay addresses innovative ways of financing safe sanitation in poor urban households and neighbourhoods. Although sanitation comprises several components, this paper focuses only on human excreta disposal. It is argued that the urban poor already finance their sanitation, mostly in loss of time, energy, dignity, health, income and development opportunities. To turn these losses around and fulfil basic human rights, creative financing systems are needed. Using a combination of literature review, personal and documented experiences, the authors present an overview of traditional and innovative financing approaches and mechanisms for urban poor sanitation, and discuss their advantages and limitations.

The authors are senior programme officers at IRC: Christine Sijbesma, Carlos Diaz, Catarine Fonseca and Christelle Pezon.

2) Smart Finance Solutions

This booklet on Smart Finance Solutions, gives examples of how different financial mechanisms are being used to finance water, sanitation projects and small local businesses that contribute to reaching MDG-7. The first chapter of this booklet describes different financing mechanisms being applied at household / community (micro-) and at intermediate institutional (meso-) level. It gives examples of how these mechanisms are being used to finance water and sanitation projects or small/ medium enterprises. It also provides the reader with some useful links for further reading.

The second part of the booklet describes which business models can be used to obtain different financial mechanisms and gives an overview of how to write a successful business plan or project proposal. This booklet also includes a list of organisations that finance water and sanitation projects/ businesses. The booklet is designed as a source of inspiration, rather than a manual. It will however provide links to further, more in-depth information.

3) Water and Sanitation Management Organization (WASMO) (2006). Users as managers : facilitating local self governance for drinking water supply. Gandhinagar, India, Water and Sanitation Management Organization, WASMO.

Available as scanned document at:  http://www.irc.nl/docsearch/title/162345

4) More results, specifically on microfinance, can be found in our Digital library

Water in the Netherlands

Q: Where can I find information in English about Dutch water sector institutions and their roles? (Foreign student following international course in The Netherlands)

Answer: The Netherlands Water Information Network ‘Waterland‘ has a section in English called “Water in the Netherlands“, managed by the Netherlands Water Partnership (NWP). The section includes an overview of the Dutch water sector, with information on the public and private sector, and on Dutch water knowledge institutes. There are other sections on: Dutch water history; water engineering; water management; water, environment and agriculture; drinking water and industrial water supply;and wastewater.

Every two years the NWP publishes “Dutch Water Sector” a directory of Dutch water expertise.

More information in English can be found on the web sites of:

• VEWIN, Association of Dutch Water Companies
• Dutch Association of Regional Water Authorities
• Wikipedia – Water supply and sanitation in the Netherlands [the entry seems to be have been written in 2006 and not updated since then]

In the Netherlands there are two water museums:

• The Netherlands Water Museum in Arnhem
• Nederlands Waterleidingmuseum (Dutch waterworks museum) located in a water tower in Utrecht [info in Dutch only]

Rainwater harvesting at primary schools

Q: You have good information but could you please avail us with information about rain water harvesting in rural primary schools or perhaps could you please contact me about safe rain water harvsting in primary schools? (anonymous user)

Answer: of all the documents available I would like to provide you with some practical documents to start with:

Factsheet on domestic rainwater harvesting (2003) written by our colleague Jo Smet. It’s a 4-pager with nice illustrations and provides a good introduction to the topic. You can find the document in IRC’s digital library: http://www.irc.nl/docsearch/title/125290

Smart Water Harvesting Solutions (2008). This booklet describes 17 water harvesting techniques; creative solutions in situations where ‘there seems to be no water’. Examples from all over the world are included. Each case provides a short description of the technique, applying conditions, advantages, considerations, costs and references.

Roofwater harvesting: a handbook for practitioners (2007), available in IRC’s digital library at http://www.irc.nl/docsearch/title/155697
This handbook has been written to assist NGO and government staff responsible for implementing domestic roofwater harvesting systems or programmes. It is also meant to serve as a source of material for rainwater harvesting associations preparing national design guidelines in local languages. Finally, it could be used by individual householders or masons literate in English to design single roofwater harvesting systems.

There is a lot more on rainwater harvesting, see for example our Q&A on rainwater harvesting. Much of this information is also of use for schools.

Please keep in mind however that for larger roofs, as is often the case for schools, problems may occur in a non-technical aspect: the management of the collected rainwater. It is sometimes difficult to achieve a fair distribution, and collecting sufficient funds for operation and maintenance may also be an issue.

Open source journals for WASH articles

Q: I would like to publish my article in such a way that it can be shared by as many people as possible. Somebody pointed me to open source journals, however I am also keen to publish my article in a peer reviewed journal without losing the right to also share it myself. Could you advise me? (Senior programme officer IRC, The Netherlands)

Answer: There are two roads to follow, while still being able to publish it on your own web site: the “green road” and the “golden road”.

The Golden Road: make use of open access journals, such as:

• American Journal of Agricultural and Biological Science;
• BMC Public Health;
• Bulletin of the World Health Organization;
• Drinking Water Engineering and Science (DWES)
• Environmental Health: A Global Access Science Source;
• Indian Journal of Community Medicine;
• Indian Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine;
• International Journal of Health Geographics;
• International Journal for Equity in Health;
• Journal of Applied Sciences;
• Water Alternatives;
• Water SA

The Green Road: options in peer-reviewed journals to keep your rights to publish

• Open Access self-archiving – deposit your digital document in a publicly accessible website. The author holds the copyright for the pre-refereeing preprint, so that the document can be self-archived without seeking anyone else’s permission.
• Green publishers – allow archiving pre-prints & post-prints (e.g. Elsevier)
• Blue publishers – allow archiving of post-prints but not pre-prints
• Yellow publishers – allow archiving of pre-prints but not post-prints
• White publishers – no archiving allowed (e.g. IWA)

[Source: http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/ ]

Note for the reader: If you have used one or more of the options mentioned, please leave your comment. We would love to hear about your experiences!

Water quality test kit

Q: could you suggest me the methods to remove e-coli from community based urban water supply systems (closed channel flow)? The method which I am looking for is cost effective and having high efficency of e-coli removal. (student, Engineering college, Nepal)

Answer: We do have some information on commonly used field test kits, which might also be of use for urban water supply systems:

[1] The DelAgua kit, developed by Oxfam and the Robens Centre for Public and Environmental Health, University of Surrey, is designed to carry out five basic tests to measure the quality of drinking-water: microbiological quality, turbidity, free chlorine, total chlorine and pH.  The kit is designed for use in the field, but may also be used in a laboratory or other permanent location.

More info here: http://www.rcpeh.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=107&Itemid=559

A GWA case study of the use of the DelAgua kit by CARE in Yemen was recently published in Source Bulletin: http://www.irc.nl/page/40485

[2] Wagtech International Portable Water Testing – http://www.wagtech.co.uk/ShowCat.php?catid=3 . There have kits for monitoring micro-biological and physico-chemical water quality in the field.

On their web site they claim that they have supplied kits to UNICEF and WHO.

[3] India Water Portal has a list of field kits for water quality testing available in India. Included are the water quality parameters each kit can test for, the price (if available) and the supplier’s address. There is also a link to a 2005 UNICEF evaluation of several field testing kits. http://www.indiawaterportal.org/data/kits/index.html

[4] UNICEF has used simple water testing field kit for bacteriological quality only in post-tsunami programme in Sri Lanka

See Source South Asia, http://www.irc.nl/page/38743

We would advise you to check with local WES staff from ENPHO, WHO or UNICEF for more specific information about the use of water quality testing kits in Nepal:

ENPHO, 110/25 Adarsa Marga-1, Thapagaon, New Baneshwor; Email: enpho@mail.com.np; http://www.enpho.org/

WHO – Nepal,The WHO Representative; UN Building;PO Box 108; Kathmandu; guptasmithv@searo.who.int; http://www.searo.who.int/

UNICEF – Nepal; UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia (ROSA); P.O. Box 5815; Lekhnath Marg; Kathmandu, Nepal; http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/nepal.html; rosa@unicef.org; Tel: 977-1-4417.082; Fax: 977-1-4419.479; 4418.466

You may also be interested in the WEDC publication: Water Quality Surveillance – a practical guide, by Guy Howard

 

HIV/AIDS and menstruation: what are the minimum steps that must be taken in order to ensure that the bloodied rags are safe for reuse

Q: We have been told some conflicting information regarding safety precautions. On the one hand, some folks/guidelines recommend that a woman should wash the rags with soap and water, dry, and reuse them. Others, however, say that due to the highly infectious blood – particularly with women in stage 3 or 4 of the illness -the rags should be soaked in a bleach solution, boil them and wash them with soap and water.

We need to know what are the minimum steps that must be taken in order to ensure that the bloodied rags are safe for reuse, while placing as little strain and effort on women living with HIV/AIDS. (Beviour change specialist, USAID/HIP- Hygiene Improvement Project)

Answer: We don’t know the answer.
We do know that the HIV virus itself would not survive more than a few seconds of washing with water with or without soap, so even just well rinsed menstrual cloths wouldn’t be HIV-infectious to anyone else. However, for re-infecting the user with other illnesses, we are not sure.

You may want to contact the HIV/AIDS programme of the Royal Tropical Institute.

Comments and additions on this important topic are very much welcome!

Water quality field test kits for Indonesia

Q. I am in Jakarta to help design and plan the impact study at the end of the WSLIC2 WASH project.

The study will include testing quality of water in improved and unimproved sources and in some home storage vessels.

Tests should cover bacteriological quality, including E coli, and the most common chemical parameters (iron, fluoride, nitrate, ?) (not sure if other parameters, such as arsenic are important in Indonesia; will find out)

During the baseline, tests were done in laboratories.

Provinces concerned are West & East Java, S and W Sumatra, West Nusa Tenggara, S & W Sulawesi and Bangka Belitung (island off East coast of Sumatra).

I would like to propose field test kits if this is as effective and more efficient than lab tests of field samples, and the kits can be used without (much) training.

In my slow sand filtration days the usual kits were Millipore kits. However, there may be better alternatives today. The Shinyanga impact evaluation team used kits of Kyoritsu.

(IRC staff member)

Answer. Here is some info on commonly used field test kits.

[1] The DelAgua kit, developed by Oxfam and the Robens Centre for Public and Environmental Health, University of Surrey, is designed to carry out five basic tests to measure the quality of drinking-water: microbiological quality, turbidity, free chlorine, total chlorine and pH. The kit is designed for use in the field, but may also be used in a laboratory or other permanent location.

A GWA case study of the use of the DelAgua kit by CARE in Yemen was recently published in Source Bulletin

[2] Wagtech International Portable Water Testing. The have kits for monitoring micro-biological and physico-chemical water quality in the field. On their web site they claim that they have supplied kits to UNICEF and WHO.

[3] India Water Portal has published a list of field kits for water quality testing available in India. Included are the water quality parameters each kit can test for, the price (if available) and the supplier’s address. There is also a link to a 2005 UNICEF evaluation of several field testing kits.

[4] UNICEF has used simple water testing field kit for bacteriological quality only in post-tsunami programme in Sri Lanka. See a recent article in Source South Asia.

It is probably wise to check with local WES staff from WHO and UNICEF for more specific info about the use of field kits in Indonesia.
A.