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>View discussions about this entry País: Bangladesh
Organization: VERC
Field of Work - Sanitation
Year the initative began (yyyy) - 2000
Project URL: http://www.verc.org
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? - Total Sanitation is possible if the community people can be ignited to take the lead role.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? - Following are the points in support of the uniqueness of the innovation –
i) People’s participation in the entire PIME process i.e., in planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation ii) Engagement of Local Government Institution (Ward Water Supply and Sanitation Committee and Union Water Supply and Sanitation Committee) community level to national level iii) Total coverage (household, public place and institutions) iv) Software led approach v) A sense of ownership in community people supports sustainability vi) People moves up the sanitation ladder – form affordable models to higher and more durable costly options vii) Engagement of all segment of community people viii) It addresses menstrual management issues for better health ix) Disability issue is addressed with attention to elderly people and pregnancy x) It follows the principle of facilitating other than teaching xi) A paradigm shift from engineering design to local designs xii) Bottom up process replaces the top down one The Process implementation is as follows - Entry PRA : Transect; social mapping; disease profile; seasonality diagram; feces calculation; impact analysis; chapatti diagram; problem identification and demand creation CBO formation : Representation of poor, women, hardcore poor Action planning : CBO prepares action plan, identifies resources Implementation: i) Hardware – a. Hygienic latrine installation at household, institution and public places and b. Water point installation ii) Software – Hygiene education for hygiene practice promotion at community and institution levels Facilitation of meetings with: CBO, LGI, Public place and Institutions Campaign : Organize rallies, observation of days, community cleaning actions Monitoring and follow up : i) Hygiene practice at household, community, institution and public places Linkage building : CBO, LGI at Ward, Union, Upazila, Sector NGOs, Cultural Group, Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? - Barriers –
i) Institutional linkage between line actors as well as other stakeholders to institutionalize the time consuming hygiene behavior promotion activities ii) Integration of all stakeholders including the donor community to carry forward the innovative approach to linkup with other development interventions iii) Effective replication of the approach in the country is still very much dependent on advocacy at the policy level iv) Effective and efficient use of Government allocation (20% of annual development budget) for sanitation purpose v) Funding support for effective and lasting collaboration between sector NGOs, local government institutions on strategic aspects of the program implementation process How do you plan to expand your innovation? - Organizing workshops, training, seminar on the innovation from where people can learn, exchange their views and adopt things for adoption and make WatSan program more effective and make it sustainable. Foreign participants if can attend these workshops, training program and they will be able to apply these ideas of the innovation in their own contexts. Sometimes, VERC present paper in seminar and workshops which is also fruitful in making other people familiar with the innovation. Exposure visit is another vital process where from sector actors from within the country and abroad can learn. This method is vice versa. This way we expand our innovation.
Do you have any existing partnerships, and if so, how do you create them? - What type of partnerships to do need? VERC has no partnership network on WatSan of its own but VERC maintains membership of other network/forums such as CLTS network, Advancing Sustainable Environmental Health (ASEH) network, NGO Forum etc. Besides, VERC has other network under other projects like - Education, Strengthening of Local Government, and Improved Cook Stove.
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. - In all 49 Unions and 4 Municipal areas have been covered by sanitation activities.
How many people have you served or plan to serve? - The innovation has benefited about 1.3 million people directly while the number of indirect beneficiary is .35 million people in rural and peri-urban areas of the country.
Please list any other measures of the impact of your innovation? - Sanitation initiative is now a visible national development priority issue towards meeting the MDG target
Exactly who are the beneficiaries of your innovation? - All segment of program area population especially the poor and the poorest.
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? - Our Water and Sanitation initiatives are financed by WaterAid Bangladesh- Donor agency, community contribution in the form of participation cost and Government allocation for sanitation.
Provide information on your finances and organization: - Current Annual budget (2007 fiscal year)?
Annual budget for the past 1-2 years (2006 and 2005)? Annual revenue generated? What are your current sources and/or streams of revenue? Do you currently have sources of earned income (examples?); If not, why? • Current Annual budget (2007 fiscal year): 279543237.00 (Taka) 1. Annual budget for the past 1-2 years (2006 and 2005): 205883214 (Taka) • Annual revenue generated 1. What are your current sources and/or streams of revenue? Overseas donor support 19.81%, Donor loan fund support – 9.66%, VERC income – 70.53% 2. Do you currently have sources of earned income (examples?) Micro-credit, sale of publication, income from capacity building training support (as per VERC Annual Report - 2007) 1. If not, why? • Number of staff (3 boxes: full-time, part-time, volunteers): Full time Part time Volunteers 768 822 22 What is the potential demand for your innovation? - How do you estimate this demand?
Number of staff (full-time, part-time, volunteers): Request from other organizations working in the sector within the country and organizations from overseas for package training on the innovation indicate the potentiality. A total of 15 Bangladeshi NGOs (including donor agencies like - Care Bangladesh, World Vision, Danida, Plan Bangladesh) have trained by VERC on the innovation. Some UN representatives and national professionals from Mozambique, Ghana, Tanzania and Ethiopia came for exposure visit to the program areas. Besides, a huge team from India under the leadership of the Secretary of the Local Government Ministry (Central Govt.) came to VERC to learn about innovation and they have successfully adopted the same in their perspective. Cambodia, Nepal and East Timor are two nations who directly had training support from VERC on the innovation. Similar demands still coming in for training support from VERC on the approach. What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? - Government policy decisions are affecting a consistent growth of the NGO as it time to time affects the organizational strategies.
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. - VERC has been working on sanitation since its inception in early seventies. Formerly the agency was following a conventional approach of mainly production and distribution of water and sanitation hardware with limited activities on hygiene education. There was also subsidy support for implementation of activities. Everything was basically target driven and top down process. The donor agency WaterAid Bangladesh conducted a participatory evaluation of program success in 1998 which reveals that intervention benefits are not that visible to community people and to that effect a remedial measure was recommended by the review team led by Mr. Kamal Kar – a renowned Participatory Development consultant from India. He recommended for adoption of participatory approach in improving WatSan status of communities.
Accordingly, VERC brought about a strategic change in the implementation process. It was decided that the former subsidy backed interventions should be replaced by a no subsidy approach capitalizing on social capital of the community. Accordingly, the approach was tried out in project areas and found that the community being empowered with the basics of sanitation technology has successfully innovated a number of latrine models to fit it with the diversified well-being status of community people. Flexibility of the approach has enabled the community to achieve 100% latrine coverage in some areas with diversified latrine options of different cost levels suited to individual families. Also they have evolved action oriented hygiene behavior change program. Different categories of community catalysts has come up with supportive role to carry forward the activities in a comprehensive manner and attain sustainability and replicating the learnt lessons in the adjoining area. The study has tried to explore the efficiency of empowering community to work on its own and achieve the goal of wider sanitation coverage. As part of the third phase of the project new program components have been tried and found to be effective and worth continuing. VERC is now known across the sector in the country, region and continents as the pioneer of the innovation. Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material -
Name : SHAIKH ABDUL HALIM Present Address : Executive Director, VERC Date of birth : Ist March 1951 Languages known : Bangla (mothers tongue) English (fluent in speaking, reading and writing). Professional Work Experiences: • In September 1977 Save the Children (USA) in collaboration with UNICEF Bangladesh started an experimental project called the Village Education Resource Center (VERC) I was assigned as Project Director to work as a counterpart of an American Communication Expert who served as Project Manager. • Worked as resource person consultant in various capacity with 15 coalition and teams Please
Contact Information:
Shaik Abdul Halim
Executive Director VERC (NGO) Discussions about this entry |
Shifting Millions from Open Defecation to Hygienic Latrines
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sir the cost of the tsc in tamilnadu in villupuram distick and model of the work in see the photos
VERC is successfully implementing community led total sanitation in the rural Bangladesh where the communities declared open defecation free zones with the involvement of VERC NGO. I had a chance to visit few of their villages where CLTS approach involved. Villagers and children join hands in this effort and constructed toilets in all their households using the barefoot engineers, local leaders to design their toilets. The simple technology coupled with the innovative ideas from the local people made the community with 100% toilet coverage, usage and maintenance. To upscale their role model projects, WaterPartners International is supporting few of the communities in the rural Bangladesh such Kalma Union for bringing changes in the lives of thousands of people.
S.Damodaran
Country Director - India
WaterPartners International India Liaison Office, Tiruchirappalli
Your work offers some similar insights and ideas to the priority of local design and maintenance offered by the fellows who submitted this idea from Africa...perhaps you can share ideas with these fellows...
http://www.changemakers.net/node/7134