WECF Caucasian and Central Asian ecosan trainings
43 participants from ELA partner organizations from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Central-Asia took part in WECF ecosan training
21.03.2008 | Olga Plekhanova/Fedde Jorritsma
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Two trainings into the ins- and outs of ecological sanitation took place in the Caucasus at the end of February and early March. Thirteen environmental organisations came together in the residence of the Kyrgyz president in Osh, followed a week later by a training in Georgia.
At the 24th February representativesof 13 environmental organizations in Central Asia arrived in the Residence of the Kyrgyz President in Osh. The presidential atmosphere proved to be an excellent location for the EcoSan trainings & Workshops. This became also clear out of the evaluation forms where all participants indicated that the training full filled their expectations.
On Monday morning we started with the equation: Implementation = Quality x Acceptance which was the foundation of the 5 day program of the training & workshops. After a short introduction to each other, our EcoSan experts from the Technical University in Hamburg set conventional sewage systems against EcoSan and explained the principles of EcoSan. One representative from the Sanitation Epidemiological Station (SES) said to be impressed. During the excursion the participants experienced the the Urine Dry Diverting Toilets are indeed not smelling and could even be built inside the house.
The Wednesday was the construction day examples from many countries were shown, a demonstration was given and finally there was a opportunity to make an own design. The next they we moved slowly from the quality part to the aspects of acceptance. In the role play an old men who didn't believe in any change, was blocking the EcoSan consultant and participants could experiment on different solutions for this kind of situations. Different organizations told about their experiences in EcoSan projects. CAAW provided a training on Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation where people had to vote anonymous on their hygiene behavior. After this hard learning there was time for some relaxing. In a restaurant participants were eating, dancing and drinking which had a noticeable effect in the next morning when the hygiene and agricultural part of EcoSan were addressed. In the afternoon participants defined the key-success factors for sustainable EcoSan projects with the workshop method and used to community action planning tool to make a plan for an EcoSan project. In the evening a Kyrgyz dancing group showed their skills. The last day all participants received the WECF EcoSan Certificate.
Tbilisi
The Ecosantraining in Tbilisi started on the 3rd of March, Mother's Day in Georgia. 30 participants from ELA partner organization from Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia took part in the training.
Participants discussed a broad spectrum of topics: construction of ecosan-toilets, re-use of ecosan-products in agriculture, participatory methods for practical work with communities etc.
On the second day of training participants visited the Informational Centre of a Georgian partner - Rural Communities Development Agency (RCDA)- in a village Misaktsieli, where the first ecosan-toilet in Georgia was constructed. During the training participants could use new information in developing of their own design of Eosan-toilet, planning of using urine as fertilizer in agriculture and community mobilization planning for work with villagers.
After very intensive work all participants took part at the farewell party in a nice Georgian restaurant and experienced Georgian cuisine, music and well known hospitality of Georgians.Related News
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"The cooperation between WECF and Eastern European environmental NGOs gives a good basis for improving the environment and life conditions, in such way that the future generations of these countries can benefit." 
