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Driving equilibrium change

Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 04:49:38 GMT

Our mission @ RAWDP is to make safe drinking water and sanitation available to marginalized households in environmentally ravaged communities in Africa. Our project drives equilibrium change by widening the distribution and accessibility of our clean water filters within record time through the training and engagement of filter entrepreneurs; all of us working together to assist households in oil producing communities in Nigeria to maximize the quality of their drinking water supplies and freeing them from the burdens of ill-health caused by human (sanitation, agriculture etc.) and industrial pollution. To effectively consolidate on the gains already made, filter artisans and micro-entrepreneurs affiliated with the project have developed a 2012 milestone that will facilitate the delivery of the target 78,000 filters by 2012 aimed at reaching unreached critical areas and achieve sustainability. In 2008 we developed the operational strategy of: “Project 78 for 78,000 filters in 2012”. This entailed the setting up of 78 local filter factories, in 78 different and well dispersed rural communities, each being headed by each of the trained 78 entrepreneurs. Each of these factories was to manufacture at least 1000 filters by the end of the set milestone end date. Under this arrangement, the 78 trained personnel were supported with already purchased tools and materials required to set up the filter factory and conveniently produce the filters in the remote rural communities. They received filter steel mold, tool box and other relevant materials in addition to other support from us, including quality standards checks that support them work over the long term. Today, with just less than 12 months to this target most of the artisans have aggressively realized an average of 50 – 60% of the target. Meeting the target balance is a challenge for the next 12 months and greatly depends on the immense generosity of our donors - kind hearted people like you.

Central in the promotion and adoption strategies is the optimization of relevant tools and approaches in community participation to engage the communities, promote household hygiene and achieve sustainability in filter use and efficiency. By doing this, we are not only achieving a sustainable cost structure but courageously capturing and managing the huge clean water needs of thousands of locals. Other key operational activities being developed for region-wide impact includes; the appointment of filter distributors in parts of the urban areas; capacity building initiatives; community participation strategies and the direct engagement and involvement of households, new partners and volunteers. The main source of financial support over this period has come from donations but possibly beyond 2012, this would come primarily from filter sales. This will be leveraged by a micro-credit scheme we are about setting up at the close of 2012. This is desired to assist our afar entrepreneurs enhance productivity in their various catchments communities. The Model is designed to safeguard the funds and revolve its reach into new areas as the project expands in the region.

Through this, these entrepreneurs will work on targets that aims to generate reasonable incomes especially from filter sales and other related services which are vital in sustaining our ‘’burn rate’’ and aid the filter manufacturing business to flourish and achieve its optimum objective. By so doing we hope to expand the impact of the project as well as tremendously energizing the local economy through job creation. Households give ultimate meaning to these efforts through their purchase and sustained use of the filters. The impact is enormous as it is helping thousands of households to access clean drinking water at minimal costs, and reducing cases of water borne pathogens.

http://esango.un.org/irene/?page=viewContent&nr=359&type=2&section=2

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Project on UN Best practice report page

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Communities mobilized to achieve ODF status!

Joachim Ezeji — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 13:17:52 GMT

In order to enhance the achievement of adequate coverage and impact of its activities RAWDP has mobilized 2 rural communities (where it currently works) in Imo State, Nigeria to achieve open defecation free (ODF) status. The Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) and Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) strategies are promoted. While PHAST is primarily a decision-support tool that uses ‘seven step’ participatory approach to facilitate community planning and action. The seven steps are: Problem identification, problem analysis, planning for solutions, selecting options, planning for new facilities and behaviour change, planning for monitoring and evaluation and participatory evaluation. It works on the premise that as communities gain awareness of their water, sanitation and hygiene situations through participatory activities, they are empowered to develop and carry out their own plans to improve this situation. The plans adopted may include both construction and management of new physical facilities as well as safer individual and collective behaviours. PHAST utilises specifically designed tools comprising of a series of pictures depicting local situations. Groups of people are asked to say how these relate to the local situation (but never to themselves directly) and what they would need to do to solve the problems that they have identified. When individual knowledge is required a process called pocket chart voting is used which allows the participants to vote in secret. The findings are then discussed by the group as a whole, but an individual never has to reveal their choice. CLTS on the other hand uses participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques to raise awareness of the risk that open defecation presents and to reinforce a natural sense of ‘disgust’ about the practice. The community members analyse their own sanitation profile including the extent of open defecation and the spread of faecal-oral contamination that detrimentally affects everyone. A variety of tools are used including: Focus group discussions transect walks, mapping of open defecation sites; and ‘shit’ calculations (that calculate the total weight of faeces produced and circulating in the community). These activities in tandem with our clean water project are currently going on in villages across the 2 communities.The aim is to create a healthier living environment for all especially children aged below 5 years.

Project retrofits strategy to scale impacts

Joachim Ezeji — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 11:41:14 GMT

Youth trainees

To expand the gains of the project we seek to empower all our future trainees with micro-finance and making them become part of an extended team/network that creates access to clean drinking water for local households in order to effectively alleviate poverty and contributing directly to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). To achieve this, we have signed a memorandum of understanding with some micro-finance institutions in each of the states where we work.

Besides the youths, the strategy will also now support vulnerable women and children of poor neighbourhoods across Nigeria to overcome the basic obstacle posed to their social and economic development by poor access to water and sanitation through the leverage of microfinance targeted at building critical water and sanitation infrastructure , as well as assisting them to acquire critical skills vital in managing these infrastructures through planning, design and operational practices desired in meeting their short and long term WASH needs.

It became imperative to get a micro-credit scheme in place with an interest rate that is affordable to the beneficiaries in order to safeguard the investment, make it meaningful and revolve its reach to future trainees. By doing this we aim to protect the money as well as aiding the building of critical water and sanitation infrastructure such as water wells, boreholes, eco-sensitive latrines, as well as the filter manufacturing business, enabling it to flourish and achieve its objective. By enabling target youths and women access to ‘proofed’ finance, the impact of the project would easily be further felt while the local economy would be tremendously energized through job creation.

By developing this model, we seek to create an enabling environment where poor communities, households, men, women and the youths with altruistic virtues, vocational aptitude and a burning desire to succeed, but without financial resources to actualize these cravings are supported in an economically viable structure to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals-Clean water target. This model is all about empowerment and we intend to do it right, by being there for these men, women and youths and supporting them to be an effective link in our work’s objective of creating shared value.

Partners with local farmers to create shared value

Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 04:36:30 GMT

In its efforts to scale up clean drinking water around its areas of operation in eastern Nigeria and create shared value, Project 1831 (Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP)) is partnering with thousands of local farmers. The primary objective of the partnership is to boost the efficiency and performance of the water filters in use in local communities as well as training the farmers on practical ways of reducing the vulnerabilities of the watershed’s sensitive ecosystem to diffuse pollution from maladaptive agricultural practices and chemical leaching. In Onicha; one of the communities where over a thousand filter had been sold since January 2011, local health and environmental officials had earlier noted the increasing loads of nitrates in the local Imo River. Removal of nitrates from drinking waters filtered using the filter has been difficult for locals. To ultimately get rid of it, the project is resorting to ‘’Source Attention’’. The threatened Imo River watershed provides over 1 million people with clean drinking water, but many of the locals, including the farmers do not know that the river was the source of their drinking water. In other words, they did not understand that pollution or damage in the Imo River would have a direct impact on their drinking water. Speaking on the initiative, the project leader explains that the project when successful will further create market for our filters as its pollutant loading will be greatly reduced. Paul, a small holder farmer living in the community revealed thus: ‘’This initiative will tremendously help us to save costs associated with excessive fertilizer wastage, soil degradation, increase farm productivity as well as access to clean drinking water in both the short and long term’’. We at RAWDP expresses gratitude to all our supporters who have ensured we continued this work. All your financial contributions is going a long way in assisting us adopt innovations that help us meet our clean water objectives. Please let us know how we can do better as the project expands. We are targeting 78,000 filters in use in local households here by 2012. We are just on track in achieving this, provided you sustain the support you give us.

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Blog article

RAWDP partners with women as agents of change

Cyril Ajuruchi — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 21:04:48 GMT

There is no doubt that education changes attitudes. These new attitudes are currently being exhibited as best practices by the over 25 women association with over 1000 members who have continued to promote the adoption of the water filter with zeal and enthusiasm. The result is expanding household water filter networks in the Niger Delta communities and neighboring communities of Ihitte, Obowo, Mbaise, Umuahia, Mbano, Umunna and Okigwe in Imo State, Nigeria. The expansion of this network certainly extends the spread and reach of the Mor-sand filter and enables local people to concurrently assess, filter and use water collected from more than one potentially polluted source. A recent training conducted for these women associations has remained an indispensible asset.

According to the RAWDP’s newly recruited training director – Ms. Ngozi Otuonye; ‘’We aim to assist such communities reach a crucial tipping point. We want these people to have safe drinking water in their homes. We are however blending the adoption of these filters with sanitation and hygiene education. This is expected to reduce hygiene-related illness, push more students into schoolrooms, and break the cycle of rural poverty by making safe water much less expensive’’

‘’We now filter our waters, even borehole water with the Mor-sand filter everyday, and our children are no longer getting sick frequently as was the case before’’ – Madam Eucharia Uchendu - one of the women who participated in the training.

Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP) is grateful to all our supporters’ who have assisted in raising the funds to reach these women. Though the task remains enormous, we remain strong willed to continue. Your support cannot easily be quantified. We are grateful!

In thanking you, we happily invite our supporters to feel free to ask questions and make suggestions that would help us in this onerous task!

Project sets up Moringa oleifera clean water farm

Cyriacus Ajuruchi — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:40:29 GMT

Project location: Imo State Nigeria

To boost our project, we have finally set up the long awaited Moringa Oleifera farm near Imo River, Okigwe, Nigeria. By developing the farm we seek to create a sustainable seed supply chain vital in domesticating clean water. The seed powder is a natural coagulant in the purification of waters with high turbidity and exotic impurities. We intend using the farm to boost the capacity of local farmers to cultivate and harvest high yielding Moringa Oleifera seed varieties. The farm is currently sitting on a 50 acres land within this period and at a planting distance of 1 meter x 1 meter or 500 plants per acre. A total of 50,000 Moringa plants is currently being grown on the farm. According to Mama Grace; a local villager, “Now we will no longer have problems getting the correct seed for our water”. RAWDP is grateful to all our donors for all their donations which have made this farm a reality. Please kindly let us know your suggestion if you know of a similar farm elsewhere! Thanks!

Farm site under preparation

Typical water appearance

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http://www.rawdp.org

Project adopts new model to spread faster

Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:06:17 GMT

To effectively accelerate our work, we have relaunched our dispersion model which is underpinned by micro-finance as a catalyst (using a revolving loan approach). This has been so designed because we recognize that the vastness of the Niger Delta —about 30 million people dispersed in 13,329 communities, with only 98 being urban centers and environments that are devastated etc. that it would be pretty hard to reach critical areas where the clean drinking water needs are most critical in the delta. A major barrier has been those of logistics particularly, transportation, which has been quite high and have constrained coordination in the dispersed communities in the region. Transportation often takes more than 30% of our operational costs. This model has accordingly created positions for trained entrepreneurs who now work independently in remote locations where they live thereby reducing the huge transportation cost.In 2009, the transporation cost has come down to just 10%. By relaunching this model we aim to accelerate our expansion pace and access unreached critical areas and achieve sustainability within a sooner timeline such that by the year 2012 we aim to have 78,000 filters in use across the delta. This will be achieved via 78 local filter factories to be set up in 78 different and well dispersed rural communities, each being headed by a trained entrepreneur. These filter factories are to manufacture at least 1000 filters by the end of the set milestone end date. Chief Augustine John, a community leader in Owaza community, appreciates the effort of RAWDP in this regards as it is capable of also creating jobs and keeping the youths busy. He further revealed that RAWDP is optimizing relevant tools and approaches in community participation to engage the communities and the promotion of household sanitation. We are grateful to all our donors for all their donations which have supported us expand the project. We now have a new web page: www.rawdp.org and employ you to visit our site more regularly to keep track of this new model. Please kindly let us know your views or suggestions on this model; do you think it would accelerate our efforts? Thanks!

NGO evaluates rate of filter adoption

Ijeoma Egbu — Mon, 25 May 2009 11:39:28 GMT

Ipu West Community ruler and us

An independent evaluation of the adoption rate of the Mor-sand filter and other water treatment options in selected communities in the oil rich Niger Delta region of Nigeria has been commissioned by Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP). One of the communities is Ipu west, in Owaza town of Abia State Nigeria. The Community was selected for the evaluation because unlike most communities in the region, it is relatively more peaceful. The town is made up of 4 Autonomous Communities with Ipu west as one of them. Ipu west is made up of 7 Villages headed by 7 Chiefs. The community is located 7 kilometers away from the busy Enugu-Aba-Port Harcourt Express road. The population of the Ipu west community is estimated at 45,000. A random population of 190 people was sampled during the evaluation.

The objective of the on-going evaluation was to access gaps in adoption and relating it to findings from other project areas with the aim of understanding how to bridge the gap at minimal cost. The evaluation amongst other things looked at water storage and treatment/filtration. The survey’s initial findings revealed that over 30% of the locals now treat their drinking water before use, unlike the previous 90% who were not treating their drinking water before the debut of the project in 2006. The percentage of those using Mor-sand filter rose from 0% in 2006 to 12% in 2009. About 15% of those treating their water were using treatment chemicals while less than 3% were using storage as treatment. Recorded factors against adoption in the community were ignorance (21%); indifference (32%); Cost (19%); poverty (25%) and others (3%). The finding also indicates a recorded rise of 13% over the initial 43% in 2006 that were using Jerry-Cans to store their drinking water. Other storage devices were open Buckets (now 12% from the previous 17%); Covered Drums (still unchanged from the initial 15%); Plastic Tanks (now 5%); and others (less than 20%).

Compared with earlier evaluations carried out in December 2006, access to water in the community has not advanced beyond what it used to be. The study revealed that in the community, Commercial private commercial boreholes still dominate (40%), while the percentage of those sourcing water from River and Stream sources was 17%, and the conjunctive use of rainwater from rainwater harvesting was 5%. It was also revealed that Jerry-Can containers were the major and commonly used water storing material. Generally, the distance covered and time spent by the inhabitants of the community to get their drinking water was between 0.5-1km, and often takes more than one hour. The consequence was that about 59% of the people do not get enough drinking water for their household. However, 93% of the locals agreed that water filtration/treatment enables healthier living while 7% were indifferent. There was also a consensus by the locals that improving and expanding their water sources was a pressing need and concern; though they still agreed water treatment is an expedient intervention in the community at the moment.

A community leader, Chief Ogbonna thanked the assessors for coming to his community for the assessment. According to him “It is good that you are here to do what the oil companies are not doing, please always find time to visit us because clean water is life”.

RAWDP is grateful to all supporters who provided funds that are enabling this work. Your feedback and questions about what we are doing is desired in order to better guide this process as the evaluation continues in other communities in the region. The final report will be published as one single document in January 2010.

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Mor-sand Water filter project enters 28th community, rebrands!

Dorathy Onwumere — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:31:46 GMT

A typical water source in a local community where we work

Rural Africa Water Development Project’s “Mor-sand Filter for oil producing communities” has expanded into the 28th community, and installs a total of 21,023 filters for local households. This milestone is part of the project’s long term aim to produce and install 78,000 filters for 78,000 households serving well over 624,000 people in 78 dispersed communities by 2012. According to the project coordinator, Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji; with the vastness of the Niger Delta — 187 local government areas, about 30 million peoples, 12 per cent of Nigeria’s surface area, 13,329 communities, with only 98 being urban centers, long coastlines and environments that are devastated, the challenge still remains very huge. This therefore necessitated the rebranding of the project from Mor-sand filters for oil producing communities, to “Project 78 for 78,000 filters in 2012”. He said that 78 clean water artisans have already been trained and are expected to man the proposed 78 water filter factories to be set up before the end of 2012. Each filter factory will accordingly be supported to manufacture 1000 filters by the end of the project year in 2012; …..‘’by so doing, we aim to produce 78,000 filters for 78,000 households’’..he said. According to the project coordinator, as a means of monitoring progress toward the goals and objectives set for the project; Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP) in collaboration with a multi-stakeholder group that comprised of traditional institutions, government line ministries, Community Based Organizations and community volunteers etc. developed a core set of indicators for effective Monitoring and Evaluation. The objectives of the Monitoring and Evaluation includes the need to measure progress against objectives and performance standards, and to enable accountability to donors, partners and people affected by the project. Speaking at the reception for RAWDP, a community woman; Madam Matilda Ogar said …“I thank this NGO for remembering us and teaching us how to make our water clean again, at least my son that has been idle since leaving college now work as a water artisan. For helping us solve a serious headache, our people are grateful to you and your supporters. May all your other good plans for us be rewarded with good health and prosperity by God almighty” We are grateful to all our supporters’ who have assisted us raise every kobo so far used in producing and installation of a total of 21,023 filters for 21,023 Households; the training of 78 youths in this regards and the staging of participatory Water and Sanitation (WASH) classes for 39,522 men and 54,678 women in these communities. Though the task still remains enormous, but with you, we remain strong willed to continue. Your support cannot easily be quantified. We are grateful! As the project courageously moves on, RAWDP invites all its supporters to feel free to ask questions and make suggestions that would enable us do better.

The difference between our filtered water and the originally sou

The desperation for safer drinking water ensures that local yout

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