Hope for Slum Communities: Water and Sanitation
SECTION V: ENVIRONMENTAL HOPEby Scott Bessenecker
Excerpted from forthcoming The Quest for Hope in Slum Communities,
Reprinted with permission ISBN 1932805-192 World Vision Press in partnership with Authentic Media
expected publication date Summer 2005
Water and Sanitation
Population
Urban Planning
Walking along the dirt paths of the garbage community in Cairo, Egypt, my friend Mark and I happened upon Angel, an eleven-year-old friend whom we had gotten to know in the children’s program run by our summer mission team. Angel and three of her friends were returning from the local water tap, toting five-gallon buckets of water on their heads. Mark and I were eager to help (and just a little uncomfortable as healthy adult men walking effortlessly alongside these little girls carrying such heavy loads). With a burst of objection from the girls and breaking all the cultural rules that insist guests in the community should not carry the host’s load, Mark and I grabbed the buckets and began to lug them to Angel’s home. I’m not sure what was more embarrassing: walking next to the girls without assisting them or struggling and grimacing while spilling large amounts of water, carrying the buckets that they so easily balanced on their heads.
There was a flurry of angry Egyptian Arabic when we arrived at her home, as Angel’s mother seemed to scold her for allowing the foreign guests to do her chore. Angel’s mom quickly invited us to sit down in the dark, one-room, concrete hovel while she dipped some of the water out of the bucket and placed it in a pot sitting atop a propane Bunsen burner to prepare the ever-present cup of tea. Angel had a large family and I wondered how often she had to make her barefoot journey through the trash to the community tap, since the average person needs more than a gallon of water a day.
Only one-half of one percent of the water on our planet can be considered available, fresh drinking water. And the consumption of water is increasing at twice the rate of population growth.1 In densely populated human settlements, there is not only a concentrated need for fresh water but also a correspondingly high concentration of human waste, often introducing contaminants into the available water supply. Ways must be explored to get clean water into slum communities and get the waste out.
A South African company called Roundabout Outdoor has created an innovative solution to increase the clean water supply in poor communities. The company installs merry-go-rounds, or roundabouts, that pump water from a well into a 5,000-liter storage tank. Not only does this provide some recreation for the children in poor communities who rarely see playground equipment but it harnesses their natural energy at play to provide water for them and their families. The costs of installing and maintaining the pumps are covered by the private sector who pay to advertise on the side of the two-story-high tank.
Another innovation tested in the slum community of Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, is the Vacu-tug. This little, three-by-five-foot device is comprised of a 500-liter tank sitting on a four-wheel frame and powered by a small gas engine. The Vacu-tug will evacuate the solid waste of overflowing pit latrines that characterize many slum communities. It is much smaller than the conventional waste-removal trucks, easy to operate, and requires very little capital to build. An enterprising group of slum dwellers can set up a business that not only generates income but relieves the community of the human-waste problem that so often compromises the health of the poor.
The two readings below give an excellent overview to the problems of obtaining clean water and disposing of waste that wreak havoc in so many urban slum communities. The impact of water and sanitation on health and the disproportionate burden borne by women and children are examined.
Water, Sanitation and Poverty Published October 2002 by World Bank ISBN: 0-8213-4978-3 SKU: 14978
Health and the Environment in Urban Poor Areas: Avoiding a Crisis through Prevention (by Environmental Health Project) Catley-Carlson, Margaret and Silimperi, Diana. March 1996. (373KB PDF)
Unless servants to the urban poor who possess education, creativity, and technical expertise develop a knowledge of the unique water and waste problems in slum communities, those who live in slums and lack the opportunity and resources to obtain an education in water and waste management will be doomed to remain in unlivable conditions.
Notes
1. Maude Barlow, “Water Incorporated,” Earth Island Journal (San Francisco: Earth Island Institute) 17, no. 1 (Spring 2002).
Water and Sanitation
Population
Urban Planning
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