Bricks for Filters

VILLAGE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

OBJECTIVE

To provide (1) clean drinking water and (2) a primary school or other needed community building at a reasonable cost in partnership with the people of a village in South Sudan.

BACKGROUND

The people of South Sudan are in the early stages of recovery from decades of war with northern Sudan. Millions of people were killed or displaced from their homes and many villages were completely destroyed. Northern Bahr el Ghazal (NBG) is a frontline state located on the border with northern Sudan. According to a recent report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), (State Report Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Village Assessments and Returnee Monitoring, 2009) more than half of the population of about 800,000 are returning refugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs).

A survey of villagers by IOM in nearly all of the state’s 1,800 villages identified a lack of access to water, especially improved drinking water, as the greatest need. Lack of access to health care was rated the second greatest concern and education was third.

Mindful of the needs as identified by the people themselves, Hanti Sidra One Global Family is concentrating on supporting the development efforts of villages in those top priority areas through our South Sudanese NGO partner, Pan Aweil Developments Inc. (PADI). Its first projects, launched or completed in 2009, were a drilled well and a clinic in Panlang village, Aweil West county, and a project to produce and distribute biosand water filters through our entity Piu Path Nyin--The Clean Water Company, based in Aweil, the capital of NBG state.

PROJECT OUTLINE

We strongly believe that any village-based development project cannot succeed unless it has strong support and active participation of the people in the village. They must “take ownership” of the project and the process of implementing it. The first projects of PADI demonstrated this. The location of the well and clinic were determined by village leaders and villagers made the bricks and provided voluntary labor for the construction of the clinic. The building was completed in just over six months at a cost of $25,000. While this construction project was very successful, we believe, based on our analysis of the process, that we can do even better. A pilot project, to be implemented in 2010, will combine elements of all our activities and interests into one comprehensive community development that we hope will serve as a model that can be replicated in other villages.

The essence of the project is as follows:

• Approximately 200 biosand water filters will be manufactured and installed in households in a village. This will help villagers to attain their top priority--purified drinking water. The filters will be sold, not given to villagers, since they will then be much more likely to be valued and used properly. The cost per filter sold in bulk is 150 Sudanese pounds ($60US). Since most villagers are subsistence farmers with minimal access to cash, they will be able to purchase the filters by barter, using a commodity they can produce--bricks manufactured in their own village kilns. One filter will cost approximately 600 bricks.


• Householders (primarily women) and school children will receive education on use and maintenance of the filters (very simple) and general hygiene and sanitation from a team of trained community health workers.


• The bricks will be used to construct a building that can be used for the benefit of the village--it could be a school, a clinic, or a multipurpose community centre. In the case of this pilot project, it will be an 8-room primary school building in Ayat East payam (district), some 5 km south of the town of Marial Bai.


• The villagers in the area do not need to be convinced of the need for a primary school or organized to create the infrastructure to operate a school. Malweil Primary School already exists and it is well organized and well run. It has a teaching staff and about 200 students. The main problem is that, like many schools in NBG and other states, classes are held under trees. During the rainy season, classes are frequently cancelled. The school administrators and villagers are highly motivated to have a school building.


• PADI's involvement will be: (1) to supervise construction of the building; (2) to engage some skilled local workers, such as an architect, building contractor and roofing contractor; and (3) to provide building materials such as roofing sheets, timbers, cement, possibly steel doors and windows and paint. The villagers will provide labor, bricks, sand and mud (for mortar) and food for workers. Once the building is completed, it will be turned over to the village and the existing Malweil Primary School to be administered and maintained by them.


• We believe PADI can complete the construction of an 8-classroom school, plus boys’ and girls’ latrines, a staff/resource room (traditional tukul design) and a drilled well at a very reasonable cost in a period of less than one year.


• PADI will then offer its expertise to do similar projects on a turnkey basis. They will require a partnership between (1) highly motivated villagers eager to be involved in project planning and to provide voluntary labor and locally available resources and (2) an NGO, government agency or other financial backer. The exact cost will vary depending on the size of the building, the location of the village and access to building materials, and fluctuation in prices of commodities such as cement and sheet metal. PADI will guarantee the lowest possible price and quickest completion time, given these constraints.