Sanitation

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Group_picture_Aguasan_2017

The 33rd AGUASAN Workshop on the topic “Circular economy – transforming waste into resources” took place in Spiez, Switzerland from June 26 to 30, 2017. The main focus was analyzing successful and failed approaches for transitioning from linear to circular water and sanitation models.

Circular economy has great potential to drive the Water and Sanitation 2030 Agenda forward because it aligns directly with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.3 of improving water quality and substantially increasing recycling and safe reuse globally and SDG 6.4 of substantially increasing water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensuring sustainable withdrawals.

 

circular-economy

Fig. 1: Graph Circular Economy
 

 

The Swiss Water and Sanitation Consortium was present with five representatives from four different organizations: Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, Swiss Red Cross, Caritas Switzerland and Terre des hommes. The following contributions were made:

  • The Swiss Red Cross presented a poster on menstrual hygiene management in Nepal (poster will follow)
  • Caritas Switzerland presented a poster on Blue Schools in Bangladesh: a promising way to teach reduce, reuse and recycle: Poster_Blue_Schools_Aguasan_Workshop_Caritas_Bangladesh_2017
  • Terre des hommes and Caritas jointly facilitated a clinical case on Blue School 2.0. During several group working sessions, a solution was developed on how to transition from a linear Blue School to a circular Blue School and how to teach circular economy through a learning-by-doing approach in school.  The results of the discussions were presented as flip charts/ diagrams, as shown below:Circular Flows Blue SchoolsFig 2. Circular Flows in a Blue School

Circular Business Model Blue SchoolsFig 3. Circular business model for Blue Schools

Success Criteria Blue SchoolsFig 4. Success criteria for Blue Schools

Links:

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Roundtable_Bangladesh_Daily Sun_2016

The results of a multi-stakeholder roundtable on “The importance and expansion strategy of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) at school level” have been broadcasted in the two Bangladesh journals, the Daily Kaler Kantho (link) and Daily Sun newspaper (link). The event was jointly organized by Caritas Bangladesh on behalf of Swiss Water & Sanitation Consortium and Daily Kaler Kantho. The roundtable was attended by the Bangladeshi Minister of Health, the Director of Higher Education, the Chief Engineer, Department of Public Health Engineering, the Vice Chancellor of Stamford University and Country directors of several international and national NGOs such as WASH alliance, Save the Children and WaterAid Bangladesh.

The roundtable participants highlight the importance of personal hygiene and improved sanitation for the health of children and the future of Bangladesh. Many promising ideas were shared to overcome problems related to water, sanitation and hygiene in Bangladesh:

- the formation of cleanliness committees at school
- building separate toilets for male and female students
- water and sanitation issues to be included in text books and in national academic curriculum
- conduct a handwashing campaign at national level, as this has proven successful in 83 pilot schools
- children act as change agents for the society: what they learn at school will be passed on in their families
- to guarantee that the message is shared with the families, mothers can be invited to monthly WASH meetings
- sanitary napkins provided by female teachers has proven to be very useful for effective menstrual hygiene management at schools, this approach could be up-scaled to national level