Monday 9 November 2009

Soft Power Celebrates 10 Years!

This past weekend, I attended anniversary celebrations for Soft Power Education. Soft Power Education (SPE) is a British registered charity and Ugandan NGO working with communities in Uganda to improve quality of life through education. With the help of the Haileybury Youth Trust and GET, SPE integrated ISSB into their school renovation and construction programmes. So far, SPE has purchased 7 machines and has built several schools with the technology. As supporters of the technology, SPE has also recommended it to other NGOs and Agencies. Congrats to 10 years of service SPE and to your support of the technology!!


Children in front of the 10,000L water tank at the SPE Center. The tank was built with donations from Good Earth Trust, Haileybury Youth Trust, and SPE

To learn more about SPE and their use of ISSB, please follow the link:

http://www.softpowereducation.com/AboutUs/News/ISSBBrickMakingMachines/tabid/251/Default.aspx

Wednesday 4 November 2009

Greetings from Uganda!

The Good Earth Team in Uganda has been busy over the past few months conducting trainings, participating in the Uganda National Shelter Profile, and planning a project in a slum in Kampala that will build latrines.

Good Earth Technical Trainings:
In September and October, Good Earth conducted 4 trainings with various organisations. The first training was with the Rural Agency for Sustainable Development (RASD) and the student chapter of Engineers without Borders at the University of California, Davis. The training took place in Nkokonjeru, a town about an hour outside of Kampala. Good Earth trained RASD and student volunteers in water tank construction. A machine was left with RASD to continue building tanks in their community projects.

The second training was held in Koutulai, Mbale, eastern Uganda with the West Midlands, UK Chapter of Engineers for Overseas Development (EFOD). We conducted training in blockmaking and masonry skills for the construction of a grinding mill for an agricultural widow's cooperative. The mill will help bring value addition to the widow's agricultural raw cereals.

Our third training took place with Promoting Equality in African Schools (PEAS) at the Onwards and Upwards Secondary School in Buloba, a village situated outside of Kampala. We trained in blockmaking and masonry skills. Currently, PEAS is constructing classroom blocks for the school.
Training at PEAS

The last training was with the Agoro International Vocational Institute (AIVI) in Agoro, Kitgum. Agoro is a town in Northern Uganda, on the Sudan Border. It was severely affected by the 20 year war between the LRA and the Ugandan government. Good Earth conducted water tank trainings with AIVI trainees. The goal is for the trainees to set up income generation the skills acquired from the trainings at the Institute.

Tuesday 3 November 2009

Uganda National Shelter Profile

In October, Good Earth Programme Engineer, Dan Andabati, participated in a workshop that is looking at Uganda's National Shelter Profile. The workshop brought together stakeholders interested in the housing sector in Uganda. Themes surrounded housing demand, supply and finance; urban land supply; building materials; infrastructure; and institutional framework. The culmination of the workshop and the research will be a report from UN-HABITAT highlighting the current shelter situation in Uganda and the challenges it faces. Good Earth was invited to participate in relation to the construction and materials component; we wanted to ensure that mention of ISSB and its benefits was included in the National Profile. <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]-->

Improving Sanitation and Capacity in a Kampala Slum

In addition to our ongoing activities of training and advocacy, Good Earth is about to start a latrine construction project in a Namawongo, a Kampala slum area. We will be working together with a local Community Based Organisation called Namawongo Community Development Organisation (NACODO). Namawongo is situated on the edge of a wetland and the main water channel that carries all of Kampala’s run-off water ( and its garbage, waste, etc.) to Lake Victoria. This means that the conditions for those that live in the area are pretty miserable; imagine the amount of water and garbage that pours through the slum when it rains! On top of that, the total lack of sanitation facilities means that disposal of human waste is a significant challenge to the residents of the slum. Many people are forced to use plastic bags, which end up in drainage channels right next to where people sleep and eat and where children play. It is easy to get a sense from this of the high levels of water-borne diseases that easily overtake areas of the slum. Currently, as we are in the rainy season, the slum has seen an outbreak of cholera due to the poor sanitation conditions there.

Waste, drainage, living areas all mix together in Namawongo

This project will not bring a solution to the sanitation problems existing in the slum, but it is a start, as it will increase the number of toilets in the area. Aside from the physical infrastructure, the project will train NACODO members in ISSB construction and leave them with an ISSB press to continue work in the future. It will also provide them with income generation through the management of the toilets.

The project will utilise two innovative approaches to help raise money for NACODO. First, the toilet design will separate the solids from the urine as a jerry can (20 litres) of urine can be sold here as fertiliser to farmers. GET is working with the Ministry of Environment to link NACODO up to farmers who are interested in purchasing urine. This will be a continuous income generation scheme for NACODO.

Secondly, in slum areas, most (if not all) toilets work on a pay-as-you-go basis, this means that when one wants to use the toilet they pay 100 UGX per use. This is necessary to maintain the toilets, pay someone to manage them and clean them, and empty them when they are full. The toilets we build will also need money to cover the management of the toilet, which selling the urine will contribute to. However, aside from paying-to-go not being equitable, it usually means that only adults get to use the toilets as children can more easily find a discreet (or not so discreet as is often the case!) place to go. After doing some research into these issues and consulting with the community, NACODO developed a system where families or households could buy a monthly pass to the latrine, and in turn, all members of that household could use the toilets. This will provide an affordable alternative for families, allowing all the member s to have access to sanitation facilities. We are not aware of this approach being used anywhere else in Uganda, so we are excited to pilot a new approach to urban slum sanitation. Moreover, this idea has been generated by the community, so we are eager to see it succeed!

We are in the final stages of preparing for the project and hope to start near the end of the month. Unfortunately, as we are in rainy season we have had to wait to begin the project. But as soon as the rains calm down, we will be ready to start building!

Kids in Namawongo wetland area, at the edge of the slum