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>View discussions about this entry Country: Malawi
Organization: Centre for Community Organisation and Development
Field of Work: Sanitation
Year the initative began (yyyy) 2003
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? Low income women entreprenuers driving the sanitation and solid waste management iniitiative as a viable source of income
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? The project will empower local women in poor urban communities to introduce and roll out sanitation to most households and markets (women will manage the market pay toilets). Currently most households use pit latrines, but with the high rates of urbanisation this has led to increased number of rental households per plot, but as pit latrines have filled up space to construct new ones is getting scarcer. Ecosan thus provides the most viable solution as it does not compete for space with rental housing. Currently, Local Authorities barely provide solid waste management services to markets and informal settlements, this provides an opportunity to entreprenuers to separate and recycle wastes (inclusive of ecosan wastes - feacal and urine from households and markets). Household sanitation in the cities has been left to individuals at household level, and with increased urbanisation the situation has continued to deteriorate, but this project will increase awareness and the viable options that are available to the poorest in the communities.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? The backborne of this project is Entreprise driven, thus local groups (women led) will be encouraged to set up an ecological sanitation unit at the market which will comprise of a paying toilet and a manure processing shed. Markets are central places for most communities thus providing visibility to ecosan thereby creating demand at household level. CCODE will support local entreprenuers to implement their programmes to ensure both ownership sustainability, through linking groups to capital and markets for their products.
How do you plan to expand your innovation? Most of these communities are part of the Malawi Homeless People's Federation (a network of community based savings groups throughout rural and urban Malawi), through community to community exchange visits most of the communities will be adopt this approach. As has been noted with the initial groups, the major challenge the poor in these communities face is that of access to capital, groups will thus come together to access capital through their own Mchenga Fund that the poor have set up in Malawi. Through linkages with organic farmers groups, the market for manure will increase and thus create demand leading to more households realising the benefits of ecosan toilets. As the success stories of using human manure spread (through mass media and word of mouth) demand for ecosan toilets is expected to grow as well. As local community entreprenuers enhance and improve the hygiene conditions in the markets, it is expected that the Local Authorities will also demand replication in all the markets.
Do you have any existing partnerships, and if so, how do you create them? CCODE currently has partnerships with Local Authorities, Central Government Ministries and Civil Society Organisations (Local and International). The precedence that has been set with working with one partner has led to formation of more of such partnerships and these differ with others being formal partnerships and others being informal working relationships that are based on trust. CCODE is a support NGO to a people led process and our major mandate is to linking communities with resource wielding authorities and this is usually driven by community needs and such partnerships are continuosly being created from time to time.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. This innovation will contribute to improved household sanitation and enhancement of livelihoods through entreprise driven sanitation and solid waste management initiatives
How many people have you served or plan to serve? Since CCODE's inception in 2003, over 5000 households have directly benefited from CCODE's interventions that have covered housing, sanitation, water, masonry, carpentry, general laboures, household accessories including vase making, flower production, shoe making, food items; fisheries, briquettes, bakery amongst others. This particular project is expected to serve at least 5000 households directly and over 25,000 households indirectly.
Please list any other measures of the impact of your innovation? Number of households accessing clean and safe sanitation
Number of Entreprenuers (masons, carpenters, manure producers, flower makers, recyclers) engaged Significant change in household incomes (entreprenuers) Number of Markets with improved environments (functional sanitation and manure sheds) Number of Markets established for selling organic manure and urine and recyclable materials Usage of Market toilets Increase in demand of ecosan units at household level Number of disease outbreaks
Exactly who are the beneficiaries of your innovation? Low income community Households
Women led entrepreuership groups (masons, carpenters, recyclers, manure producers, briquette producers) Rental Households with improved sanitation Farmers accessing cheaper but sustainable organic fertilisers Local Governments (as the burden of non collected wastes, aging fleet and filling dump sites is solved) How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? CCODE is currently mobilising grants to help provide support to the mobilisation of community members, trainings and capacity building of entreprenuers. Thus the software aspect of the intervention will be financed through grants whilst the hardware aspect will be through loans. Community members have come together and established the Mchenga Fund where they contribute a token amount and have had other institutions supporting financially. Communities then access capital financing from this fund, but the scale of this fund requires CCODE to support in further capitalisation of the fund. Local and Central Governments have not yet started supporting this sector, it is hoped that with these interventions public institutions will begin supporting financially such ventures.
Provide information on your finances and organization: Current Annual Budget (Jul 2007- June 2008 = $950,000
Annual Revenue (July 2006- June 2007) = $799,450 Annual Revenue (July 2005 - June 2006) =$371,685 The bulk of the funds CCODE has generated are from funders (external and local). Through member contributions, the Mchenga Fund has grown and also some of the project beneficiaries have begun repaying their loans and this has brought in more revenues especially for capital projects. What is the potential demand for your innovation? CCODE supports community intervention that is led by community leaders and thus the major demand will be from community leaders in all the low income communities (in all the cities), thus need for capacity building of these leaders to be able to respond to all the needs from this project. There will be need for consultants to undertake surveys and evaluations of the innovation. CCODE Staff will have to spend a major part of their time implementing the intervention.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? The fund will mainly be capitalised with money from the local financial market which banks on the interest rates going down thus poor people being able to access loans. As groups borrow to construct their toilets, the fund will only be sustainable if groups repay. Funders being able to finance the software aspect of this project. Government also being able to start carrying some of the financial burden on behalf of the poor.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. Through exchange visits that are routinely carried out by community members, a group of people from an informal settlement in Lilongwe had gone to Embangweni a rural village for a visit and then they encountered ecological sanitation units. They were very impressed with what they saw there especially the farms but above all they noted that their major challenge was that of space as their plots were becoming smaller and smaller with all the filled pit latrines and rental houses. When they came back they started mobilising resources towards the loan for their toilets and also learning on how to construct their own toilets. They also saw the opportunities that their local market provided for intergrating solid wastes from the market and toilet waste and also providing a service to the market patrons. Currently the group is constructing the market sanitation unit and the 1st batch of household ecosan units are under construction. As the communities are already linked, 5 other groups within the city of Lilongwe have begun saving towards their toilets and learning on how to construct skyloos and this is spreading to other cities as well
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material: I am a 30 year old lady who begun mobilising women in Malawi in 2003, with a focus of directly empowering commuinties to be the drivers of change. This initial activity has led to ripple effects of commuity driven activities throughout the country that are being spearheaded by poor women and have thus gotten recognition in Malawi. I am inspired by small victories that are of importance to the poor that usually trigger more people to start taking action.
Contact Information:
Sikhulile Nkhoma
Executive Director Centre for Community Organisation and Development (NGO ) Discussions about this entry |
Women Entreprenuers in Sanitation
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I will like to appreciate the initiative you are undertaking to tackle poverty in you own way. i will like to encourage you to continue in this light.