Safe Sanitation Health and Dignity Romania
first schools and villages are starting to benefit from project by WECF and Fondation Ensemble with co-funding by ORT and Dutch Ministry Foreign Affairs
13.01.2009 | Olivia Radu
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Partners working together during the facilitation training
The first year of the project Safe Sanitation Health and Dignity, implemented by WECF in Romania, has passed. The project funded by Fondation Ensemble, has already started to benefit from the co-funding by ORT France and, since July 2008, by the Matra Kap programme from the Netherlands Embassy in Romania.
After several trainings and tutoring activities held by the WECF experts, now the 4 Romanian NGO partners from Mehedinti, Teleorman, Ialomita and Giurgiu counties gained enough capacity for implementing the next 2 years of the project. The rural communities, the main target group of the project, were also approached through different trainings and activities. The implementation of the next actions is very much facilitated now by the increased capacity of the partners and by the groups of action already formed in the villages, gathering the most active representatives.
The NGO partners in this project EuroTeleorman Association, Women for a Clean Future (Femei pentru un Viitor Curat), Medium et Sanitas Slobozia together with a new partner O Ilo Romano followed first a facilitation training for learning how to better communicate and interact with stakeholders involved in the project.
Around 11 schools in the villages were introduced into the Water Safety Plan (see previous article). Teachers were taught what activities to implement, how to test water and how to raise awareness on the risks related to water pollution among their pupils and their communities, identifying pollution sources in the village, and to elaborate an action plan in order to reduce water pollution. A manual with background information on water, water tests, water pollution and related health diseases prepared by WECF beforehand was presented (the manual is accessible via the WECF website-publications section). A toolbox (containing water tests, posters as educational material and the manual) for developing the WSP was introduced.
The 3 villages of the project in Teleorman(Beiu), Ialomita(Cosereni) and Mehedinti(Vrata) learned about ecosanitation principles and started the process of improving the access to sanitation facilities by replacing their pit latrines with new dry urine toilets protecting thought the underground water source and people’s health in the same time. The sanitary facility for the primary school in the project village Vrata, Mehedinti is finished and the pupils will use it starting with early 2009.
For the next year cooperation with the Technical University of Construction Bucharest is foreseen. After lectures will be given by a PhD student from the Technical University of Hamburg, an old partner of WECF, students will choose their research topics that will bring the project to a next level – the involvement of the scientific media.
Pupils and teachers from a next school and kindergarten from 2 villages will also benefit in the next year of new toilets. Other households from the rural areas in the project villages will switch to a sustainable sanitation leaving their polluting pit latrines behind.
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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." 
