plan 78Water and Sanitation in Nicaragua (with latrine te

Summary

Construction of 3 water and sanitation projects in Nicaragua and visits to 3 composting latrine projects in Nicaragua and El Salvador to investigate the possibility of this technology.

Background

El Porvenir has worked in El Sauce and Camoapa for 8 and 13 years respectively developing potable water and basic sanitation projects in small rural villages which had no other possible source of financial support for infrastructure.

Location

Managua, Managua, Nicaragua

Attachments

  • Blue_Pla...

Focus

Primary Focus: Drinking Water - Community
Secondary Focus: Sanitation - Households

People Getting Safe Drinking Water: 38

One well will be built in Nueva España, El Sauce, Nicaragua serving 8 families.

School Children Getting Water: 0

People Getting Sanitation: 385

48 latrines will be built in 2 communities. 18 in Nueva España and 30 in Peña de Cáfe, Campoapa. In Nueva España, an additional 17 latrines will be built (a total of 35), but will be financed by another donor (to be determined). 2 wells in Peña de Cáfe have been financed in previous Blue Planet grants. A total of 77 families will be served.

People Getting Other Benefits: 385

All beneficiaries will receive hygiene and sanitary education, training in long term maintenance of projects, and the opportunity to take part in reforestation of microwatersheds in their communities. The education component will occur in 2008, reforestation will likely start in 2009, when the water component is complete.

Start Date: 2008-01-01

Completion Date: 2008-12-31

Technology Used:

Water project: hand-dug wells with rope pump (see http://www.ropepump.com), simple traditional VIP latrines.

Phases:

Projects which include both wells and latrines in one community will be developed in two phases, latrines first, then wells. Well development is concentrated in dry season from January to May.

Community Organization:

The community had to come to El Porvenir in the first place to request this project, i.e. it is a need identified as important by the community. We do not initiate projects. The community must elect its own committee to manage the project and take long term responsibilityfor its care and maintenance. Community provides all labor on a volunteer basis. community must obtain site control of any water project, through donation or purchase, which is legalized by attorney and municipal government. Community finances any repairs needed in the long term.

Government Interaction:

Ancillary activities:

See above. In well projects several members of every community participate in installation of rope pump so that later they know how to take it apart and fix it and reinstall it. Repairs are cheap, e.g. $3 for a new rope.

Other Issues:

After project construction, water project communities are invited to participate in reforestation. Those who want to do so will develop seedling nurseries in Jan-March, transplant in the rainy season May-June, and maintain the plantations under barbed wire fence and "no burn" protection for three years minimum. Reforestation project includes construction of fuel-saving, smoke-free stoves in the homes of the best reforestation participants (and eventually others). Community health educators will visit all projects after construction to teach hygience (handwashing e.g.) and encourage ongoing maintenance and repair of all projects, strengthen local committees, etc.

In order to measure the impact of our projects, we collect data several times a year from clinics serving rural districts where we have a high concentration of projects: number of visits due to diarrhea, etc. As the number decreases we feel that hygiene education has been effective.

For further information, please review our web site: http://www.elporvenir.org

Maintenance Revenue:

Well project beneficiaries pay for repairs as needed by community collection.

Maintenance Cost:

Metrics:

Prior art before metrics

Cost: $19,286

This budget only includes the costs applied for. Not the co-funding.

Co Funding Amount: $3,910

Donor not yet identified to fund the additional 17 latrines in Nueva España.

Community Contribution Amount:

Estimated value of volunteer labor all projects $US1500

Fund Requested: $15,376

Attachments

  • Blue_Pla...
  • 2 participants | show more

    question on sanitation

    Ned Breslin of Water for People

    A solid proposal as always from El Porvenir. On sanitation, the challenge is to make sanitation provision sustainable and so many are trying to think beyond building latrines to actually facilitating the development of latrine services so that - as communities grow/change/old latrines fill then the community members without latrines do no...

    A solid proposal as always from El Porvenir. On sanitation, the challenge is to make sanitation provision sustainable and so many are trying to think beyond building latrines to actually facilitating the development of latrine services so that - as communities grow/change/old latrines fill then the community members without latrines do not have to go search out support from El Porvenir but actually can solve their own problem. I would like to see more thinking on this so that we are not simply building latrines for X number of families but rather a plan to get anitation solved locally forever.

    • Rob Bell of El Porvenir

      Ned, Thanks for your positive comment. I see this proposal as just a first step of many as we start to look down this road and try to find options that are more sustainable. Perhaps a second step could be to have some of my technical staff visit your composting latrine projects in Bolivia and Mexico - any thoughts of implementing them i...

      Ned,

      Thanks for your positive comment. I see this proposal as just a first step of many as we start to look down this road and try to find options that are more sustainable. Perhaps a second step could be to have some of my technical staff visit your composting latrine projects in Bolivia and Mexico - any thoughts of implementing them in Honduras? (much closer for us :-).

      Rob

  • 2 participants | show more

    Cost of well for 38 persons

    Meera Hira-Smith of Project Well

    I apologize for the delay in reviewing. Hope it is not too late to get some response back before scoring. The project design is very good with simultaneous approach for potable water and proper sanitation. But considering only the drinking water the rope pump on dugwell for 38 persons seems to be a bit expensive. It is USD47 per head. T...

    I apologize for the delay in reviewing. Hope it is not too late to get some response back before scoring. The project design is very good with simultaneous approach for potable water and proper sanitation. But considering only the drinking water the rope pump on dugwell for 38 persons seems to be a bit expensive. It is USD47 per head. The design of the well is no doubt good but for only 38 persons can ordinary hand pump be used as attached to the dugwells implemented by Project Well or is the depth of the well more than 1000 feet that it would be difficult to pump out water?

    It is interesting to see how the cost per head comes down to USD36 when latrines and travel for investigation on latrines are included. I am confused how travel for investigation on latrines is included in this budget. It is no doubt an important component to learn from others that would benefit us all.

    • Rob Bell of El Porvenir

      Meera, Thanks for your comments. $47 is fairly high, but this particular project has a fairly low family count. Our projects run from as low as 5-6 families per handdug well to up to maybe 50 or so. An average well for us is around 20-25 families per well. Thus, an average well for El Porvenir usually costs $14-18 per person (unfortunat...

      Meera,

      Thanks for your comments. $47 is fairly high, but this particular project has a fairly low family count. Our projects run from as low as 5-6 families per handdug well to up to maybe 50 or so. An average well for us is around 20-25 families per well. Thus, an average well for El Porvenir usually costs $14-18 per person (unfortunately high in this instance, but the communities in the El Sauce region are smaller and more disperse). The wells usually end up costing less than $1800, that is generally the maximum amount, when a well ends up being 25-30m deep - in general the wells are 15-20m deep and in El Sauce in particular, the wells are more in the 10-15m range. So we can expect the actual cost of the project to come in slightly less than the $1800 budgeted.

      The preferred technology here (used by most NGOs and the government) is the hand rope pump, invented here in the 80s. See http://www.peerwater.org/projects/27/attachments/250 for a picture or our web site http://www.elporvenir.org. See also www.ropepump.com - although they are not our supplier for pumps, they do have some information up there.

      By the same means of an unlucky stroke in the number of families above with the well, a lucky stroke with the latrines has brought the cost per latrine down. Our policy is to build one latrine per household, but in Peña de Cáfe, it turns out that several households there have more than one family living in them. In Peña de Cáfe, El Porvenir has constructed 2 wells so far, and one more is in progress - thanks to BPR.

      The travel/investigation was included after a conversation with Rajesh in which he expressed interest in supporting us to look for more sustainable latrine models...

      I hope this helps you.

      Rob

  • 4 participants | show more

    question about the composting latrines

    Marc Despiegelaere of Protos

    This looks to me a very nice project. Could you clarify a bit more about the composting latrines? Are the latrines of the Eco-sanitation type, of which farmers can use the compost and liquid fraction on their field?

    This looks to me a very nice project.

    Could you clarify a bit more about the composting latrines? Are the latrines of the Eco-sanitation type, of which farmers can use the compost and liquid fraction on their field?

    • Rajesh Shah of Blue Planet Network

      it seems that the tour (part of an earlier conversation) to study how to introduce econsan toilets to latin america is not part of the project. the project definition seems to be based on the regular pit latrines. i would like to see the tour linked so the results (hopefully positive) can be included in the project. to be explicit, the st...

      it seems that the tour (part of an earlier conversation) to study how to introduce econsan toilets to latin america is not part of the project.

      the project definition seems to be based on the regular pit latrines. i would like to see the tour linked so the results (hopefully positive) can be included in the project. to be explicit, the study should influence the project.

      the cost structure/schedule/training may change ...

      • Rob Bell of El Porvenir

        Dear Marc and Rajesh, The latrines are indeed of the Eco-sanitation type, although we will not know if the people will use the compost on their fields until after the "tour" as Rajesh calls it. I doubt that they do use the compost, in Latin America, the culture is somewhat leery of using compost - we shall see what these other projects ...

        Dear Marc and Rajesh,

        The latrines are indeed of the Eco-sanitation type, although we will not know if the people will use the compost on their fields until after the "tour" as Rajesh calls it. I doubt that they do use the compost, in Latin America, the culture is somewhat leery of using compost - we shall see what these other projects have been doing and what has worked. (I see Ned chimed in below - I know WFP has some successful composting latrine projects in Bolivia (Terrain doesn't permit any other type of latrine) and Mexico (some growing environmental consciousness) - it will be interesting to see how these other projects compare)

        Marc, you also mentioned the water table. In Nicaragua, the government standard (if you can call it that, loosely enforced) is VIP latrines of a maximum depth of 3m to avoid coming within 2m of the water table. Our staff are all trained and aware of the water table issue, so in the rare case that the water table is closer than 5m, the latrines are built less deep and the infrastructure is partially built above ground.

        Rajesh, you ask about including the composting latrines in this round of funding, but I prefer to do the investigation now and then if all is well, ask for funding in the next round. I see 2 problems with including it now: (a) I have no idea how to budget for them, i.e. what do they cost? and (b) what if the study says to us that composting latrines don't work in Nicaragua/El Salvador? I'd rather be cautious, and learn more about the technology. As a project implementer, I'd rather be more responsible and have as much information as possible before moving forward.

        Thanks,
        Rob

        • Rajesh Shah of Peer Water Exchange

          Hi Rob, I have no problem with some experimental funding. When you find out what eco-san costs and how to make it work, we can re-evaulate the project costs. In fact, without that, it becomes an "unsustainable" sanitation project. As has been observe...

          Hi Rob,

          I have no problem with some experimental funding. When you find out what eco-san costs and how to make it work, we can re-evaulate the project costs. In fact, without that, it becomes an "unsustainable" sanitation project. As has been observed and mentioned, this might end up just building a pit latrine with a grant and then repeating the process in a few years, without being able to create a self-sustaining model.

          There are many areas where cultural boundaries and habits may make things seem untenable. While avoiding total homogenization, we need to push some boundaries.

          In India, its been observed, that if you start with eco-san, it goes well. If you start with pour-flush, then its harder to introduce eco-san.

          If we are granting funds for sanitation then eco-san/composting (or dual pit) systems are the way to go. If we are granting funds to create a self-sustaining sanitation program, then there is more flexibility.

          Regards,
          Rajesh

      • Rajesh Shah of Peer Water Exchange

        Hi Rob, I have no problem with some experimental funding. When you find out what eco-san costs and how to make it work, we can re-evaulate the project costs. In fact, without that, it becomes an "unsustainable" sanitation project. As has been observe...

        Hi Rob,

        I have no problem with some experimental funding. When you find out what eco-san costs and how to make it work, we can re-evaulate the project costs. In fact, without that, it becomes an "unsustainable" sanitation project. As has been observed and mentioned, this might end up just building a pit latrine with a grant and then repeating the process in a few years, without being able to create a self-sustaining model.

        There are many areas where cultural boundaries and habits may make things seem untenable. While avoiding total homogenization, we need to push some boundaries.

        In India, its been observed, that if you start with eco-san, it goes well. If you start with pour-flush, then its harder to introduce eco-san.

        If we are granting funds for sanitation then eco-san/composting (or dual pit) systems are the way to go. If we are granting funds to create a self-sustaining sanitation program, then there is more flexibility.

        Regards,
        Rajesh

    • Rob Bell of El Porvenir

      Dear Marc and Rajesh, The latrines are indeed of the Eco-sanitation type, although we will not know if the people will use the compost on their fields until after the "tour" as Rajesh calls it. I doubt that they do use the compost, in Latin America, the culture is somewhat leery of using compost - we shall see what these other projects ...

      Dear Marc and Rajesh,

      The latrines are indeed of the Eco-sanitation type, although we will not know if the people will use the compost on their fields until after the "tour" as Rajesh calls it. I doubt that they do use the compost, in Latin America, the culture is somewhat leery of using compost - we shall see what these other projects have been doing and what has worked. (I see Ned chimed in below - I know WFP has some successful composting latrine projects in Bolivia (Terrain doesn't permit any other type of latrine) and Mexico (some growing environmental consciousness) - it will be interesting to see how these other projects compare)

      Marc, you also mentioned the water table. In Nicaragua, the government standard (if you can call it that, loosely enforced) is VIP latrines of a maximum depth of 3m to avoid coming within 2m of the water table. Our staff are all trained and aware of the water table issue, so in the rare case that the water table is closer than 5m, the latrines are built less deep and the infrastructure is partially built above ground.

      Rajesh, you ask about including the composting latrines in this round of funding, but I prefer to do the investigation now and then if all is well, ask for funding in the next round. I see 2 problems with including it now: (a) I have no idea how to budget for them, i.e. what do they cost? and (b) what if the study says to us that composting latrines don't work in Nicaragua/El Salvador? I'd rather be cautious, and learn more about the technology. As a project implementer, I'd rather be more responsible and have as much information as possible before moving forward.

      Thanks,
      Rob

      • Rajesh Shah of Peer Water Exchange

        Hi Rob, I have no problem with some experimental funding. When you find out what eco-san costs and how to make it work, we can re-evaulate the project costs. In fact, without that, it becomes an "unsustainable" sanitation project. As has been observe...

        Hi Rob,

        I have no problem with some experimental funding. When you find out what eco-san costs and how to make it work, we can re-evaulate the project costs. In fact, without that, it becomes an "unsustainable" sanitation project. As has been observed and mentioned, this might end up just building a pit latrine with a grant and then repeating the process in a few years, without being able to create a self-sustaining model.

        There are many areas where cultural boundaries and habits may make things seem untenable. While avoiding total homogenization, we need to push some boundaries.

        In India, its been observed, that if you start with eco-san, it goes well. If you start with pour-flush, then its harder to introduce eco-san.

        If we are granting funds for sanitation then eco-san/composting (or dual pit) systems are the way to go. If we are granting funds to create a self-sustaining sanitation program, then there is more flexibility.

        Regards,
        Rajesh

    • Rajesh Shah of Peer Water Exchange

      Hi Rob, I have no problem with some experimental funding. When you find out what eco-san costs and how to make it work, we can re-evaulate the project costs. In fact, without that, it becomes an "unsustainable" sanitation project. As has been observe...

      Hi Rob,

      I have no problem with some experimental funding. When you find out what eco-san costs and how to make it work, we can re-evaulate the project costs. In fact, without that, it becomes an "unsustainable" sanitation project. As has been observed and mentioned, this might end up just building a pit latrine with a grant and then repeating the process in a few years, without being able to create a self-sustaining model.

      There are many areas where cultural boundaries and habits may make things seem untenable. While avoiding total homogenization, we need to push some boundaries.

      In India, its been observed, that if you start with eco-san, it goes well. If you start with pour-flush, then its harder to introduce eco-san.

      If we are granting funds for sanitation then eco-san/composting (or dual pit) systems are the way to go. If we are granting funds to create a self-sustaining sanitation program, then there is more flexibility.

      Regards,
      Rajesh

  • Rating: 8

    review by Project Well

    Ropedugwell is too expensive for 38 persons. Ordinary hand pump can would reduce the cost. However effort on the sanitation program is good.

  • Rating: 8

    review by Water for People

    This is a solid proposal that will initiate what will be a long-term commitment to full coverage of sustainable sanitation over time.

  • Rating: 9

    review by Gram Vikas

    The integration of re-forestation in this project is impressive.

  • Rating: 7

    review by Protos

    Looks a good project.
    Since we understand now that traditional pit latrines will be build, we recommend:
    - to look at the water table of the area and make sure that drinking water wells and latrines are far enough from each other.
    - look maybe to implement 1 Eco-san latrine as an example to be copied later.

  • Rating: 8

    review by Blue Planet Network

    It is a stretch for BPR to fund research trips, but if is part of the budget and project, then the results need to be applied to this sanitation project, not the next.

    So look forward to the observations from the study and the results of the efforts in implementing.

  • Rating: 7

    review by Watershed Organization Trust

    - It is a great pleasure to know about the El Porvenir and its excellent work.
    - The per person cost of safe drinking water though is high (47.36$), it can be considered as the local situation and the need of the community as a special case to solve the problem and mitigate the effect of diarrhea.
    - The unit cost of the toilets comes to 28.68$. This is also equally important area which need to be tackled along with the drinking water issues.
    - Hence we recommend the project for further sanction

Name Status Completion Date Final Cost
Water and Sanitation in Nicaragua 2008 completed Dec 2008 10,180
Water and Sanitation in Nicaragua Camoapa 2008 completed Dec 2008 0