Safe Water and Latrines for Ethiopian Villages

This project is an on-going 3-year program which is being divided into three phases. The first of the three phases is nearing completion and is anticipated to be finished in by late Fall 2007. Anticipated completion of the entire project is January 2010. The Hygiene and Sanitation education portion of this phase is underway and the community members are attending the health and sanitation education courses which are being administered by field staff of our Ethiopia partner organization.

The first phase of this project has been such a success, that WaterPartners has added more communities to the original project plan. One of the long term goals for the 3-year project is to select 42 members of this community who will serve as models for the entire community. They will receive extensive hygiene and sanitation education training and pit latrines as a part of their participation in the project and the goal is to establish 7 Water and Sanitation committee’s with the community using these 42 models.

In this first phase of the project the 42 ‘models’ were selected based on certain criteria, such as past exposure to health and water sanitation, acceptance by the community, permanently living within the community and active participation in the health program. The hygiene and sanitation education courses were started and the construction of private pit latrines were completed in 32 of the households and construction has been started on the remaining 10.