Category: Individual Toilet Projects

Nov 04, 2013

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Google Impact Challenge India 2013

Shelter Associates were among 10 finalists who presented to a panel of judges on the 31st October 2013 as part of the Google Global Impact Awards 2013.  Shelter Associates proposed a project for the targeted installation of individual toilets, informed by digital slum mapping, in Sangli & Miraj with the intention of making the peri-urban area India’s first open defecation free city.  The proposed project and project methodology is largely the same as the one proposed to the Dasra Giving Circle in February earlier this year but has one important difference – the individual toilets would be connected to bio-digester tanks which turn the vast majority of human excrement into water.  The addition of this sanitation technology is required as Sangli & Miraj, and many other areas of India (urban, peri-urban and rural) are not served be sewage systems.

Shelter Associates were not selected as 1 of the 4 winners but were awarded 1.5 crores, along with the other 6 finalists, as the competition was very close and judges felt that each project should receive some funding.

Shelter Associates appreciate the runner-up award and will put the 1.5 crores to the best possible use, in accordance with the goal of facilitating India’s first open defecation free city.  Shelter Associates aim is that this project (in an peri-urban area with no municipal sewage system) and the Pune city-wide slum sanitation project (in a large urban area) will illustrate the feasibility of individual toilets as a sanitation option and, hopefully, will impact the National Urban Sanitation Policy and move city administrators away from community toilets which are associated with high capital costs and high maintenance costs and commonly fail to provide a long-lasting impact.

Sep 03, 2013

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Mobile App slum data entry trials begin

On 16th August 2013 Shelter Associates commence trials of the Shelter Associates survey mobile application.  Shelter Associates community workers took a tablet computer into the slums and tested the system of uploading slum data direct to the Shelter Associates on-line data collection system.

Shelter Associates have created city profiles for Pune and Sangli & Miraj which are hosted on the Shelter Associates website and are maintaned and updated by Shelter Associates on a regular basis.  Each city profile contains information for all slums within the municipal area including: the land ownership, development plan reservations, development plan zoning proposals, approximate area, population, location, topography, in addition to detailed data regarding services such as toilets, water, solid waste management, drainage and roads and access.  The information is freely available for everyone including city administrations.

To support the on-line city profiles, the NGO has developed an on-line survey system where all collected data can be input, and recently Shelter Associates has developed a mobile application which allows data to be uploaded to the on-line survey system by a surveyor with a smart phone in a slum, ward office, or any other location.

Sep 03, 2013

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Gulbarga visit

On 8th August 2013 Shelter Associates sent a team to Gulbarga in Karnataka to review a sanitation project currently underway by the Green Sanitation Foundation (GSF).  The GSF toilet system in Gulbarga uses enzymes and nutrients to accelerate the natural process of bacterial decomposition to reduces human excrement and urine into low grade water that can be output into the ground soil or into surface water drainage systems.

This project is of interest to Shelter Associates due to the potential of its application in situations where drainage connections are not available, such as peri-urban environments (Sangli & Miraj) and slums and informal settlements in urban areas which are not connected to the municipal drainage system (Cham Cham Nagar in Pune).

Ultimately the Shelter Associates team could not determine if the technology was working as the project had only been running for 2 months and it takes at least 3 months for the faeces and urine to be decomposed to water, disinfected, and emitted from the 300 litre tank beneath the toilet.

 

Sep 02, 2013

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Precast concrete toilet trials in Khulewadi

On 25th May 2013 three precast individual toilets were installed by Larsen & Toubro in Khulewadi, Pune.  As part of the city-wide slum sanitation project Shelter Associates have been exploring technologies which could be beneficial to the installation of the 1,500 individual toilets required by the project.  Shelter Associates met with Larsen & Toubro at their office in Andheri East (Mumbai) to discuss the design of an individual toilet which would be made out of precast concrete.  Following this meeting Shelter Associates were invited by Larson & Toubro to visit their precast concrete factory in Khopoli (approximately half way between Pune and Mumbai) to inspect the prototype prior to on-site trials.

Three precast concrete individual toilets were then installed in Khulewadi and the following issues were observed: (1) the structure is designed to a very high specification and therefore is almost twice the cost of the current brick and mortar solution.  (2) The units were not easy to install as the base was cast as one piece which was 1m2 and very heavy to lift.  (3) The precast individual toilets cannot be wheeled through narrow lanes which is a major drawback as the majority of the lanes in slums are narrow therefore this design would only be applicable in a minority of situations.

Sep 02, 2013

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Waste collection starts at Khulewadi

During a focus group discussion on 24th June 2013, with senior women in the Khulewadi community, it was decided that a ghanta ghadi solid waste collection system would start at the beginning of July 2013.  The ghanta ghadi solid waste collection system commenced on 1st July 2013.

The service is provided at a cost of 30 rupees per family per month and allows the slum families to hand their household waste to a person who walks through the slum with a ghanta ghadi (trolley or small vehicle).  The effectively means that the slum dwellers of Khulewadi are paying to getting access to a service which is available (at the same cost) to all other citizens of the city and it also means that less waste will be deposited on the open land which surrounds the community on three sides.

To complement this waste collection service bins were handed out on the 27th July 2013.  Each family received two receptacles so that they can segregate their ‘wet’ household waste from their ‘dry’ household waste; that is to say their biodegradable waste from their non-biodegradable waste.

Sep 02, 2013

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Focus Group Discussions are added to the model

Shelter Associates understand that community participation is an essential component of inclusive planning.  It has been observed by the NGO that without effective community involvement, support and understanding projects fail to achieve tangible long-lasting change and ultimately fail in their objective of slum rehabilitation.  This is why Shelter Associates invest a significant amount of time and energy into establishing and nurturing effective working relationships with all stakeholders of their projects, especially the slum dwellers who are after all the end users of the designs and occupiers and caretakers of the projects.  These relationships are the unseen element of Shelter Associates projects; they are the ‘software’ components which support the ‘hardware’ interventions, such as new housing, new individual toilets and solid waste collection schemes.  Workshops are integral to the software component of the project and have now been expanded in scope to include FGDs.

The FGDs are informal gatherings of small groups of people who are of the same gender and approximate age.  This format not only allows for issues specific to that demographic to be discussed but, due to the informal and intimate nature of the gathering, it also means that more sensitive topics can be discussed; questions, statements and admissions that would not normally be said in a large formal meeting with all members of the community are freely relayed and discussed sensitively and compassionately with Shelter Associates social workers.  These sessions provide insight into the behaviour of people who live without access to toilets and allows Shelter Associates to ascertain the communities current experience, awareness and understanding of the issues of open defecation including the associated issues of sexual harassment, menstrual health, nutrition, violent assault and gender insensitivity.

Aug 30, 2013

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Shelter Associates is a Google Earth Hero!

Google Earth has featured Shelter Associate’s work under the Heroes of Google Earth campaign.  Shelter Associates was chosen for it’s innovative use of Google Earth as a urban planning and development tool to help the urban poor gain access to housing and essential services (water and sanitation).
Shelter Associates is the only organisation in India to be named as a ‘Google Earth Hero’ and shares the accolade with only 8 other organiations internationally.
A short (3 minute) film has been made by Google to explain Shelter Associates use of Google Earth and is viewable via the Google Earth web page:

Mar 26, 2013

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Shelter Associates is the winner of the Dasra Giving Circle 2013 (Urban Sanitation)

Shelter Associates has been chosen from among 160 NGO’s across India as the winner of the Dasra Giving Circle grant for supporting a city-wide urban sanitation program in Pune over the next 3 years.

Dasra, India’s leading strategic philanthropy foundation, undertook a process to determine which NGO’s in India are doing work which: (1) has a direct impact on urban sanitation, (2) has the ability to reach high volunmes, (3) has links with the government, and (4) has a sanitation model which is scaleable.  Dasra researched over 160 NGO’s and identified 15 organisations for visiting.   Dasra came to Shelter Associates Pune office to meet with the Executive Director and the Shelter Associates team to learn about the history, philosophy, working methodology of the NGO.  Site visits were also conducted so that the Dasra representatives could interact with Shelter Associates project beneficiaries to witness impact on the ground.  Of the 15 organisations visited 9 were determined by Dasra as being organisations which could deliver high quality at scale.  The 9 organisation were then whitled down through an internal process within the Dasra team to identify 3 organisation who would be invited to present to the Dasra Giving Circle (DGC), a group of 15 philanthropic individuals who all pledge an equal amount into a collective pool which is awarded to 1 of the 3 presenting organisations.  Shelter Associates gave a presentation to the DGC which focussed on the evolution of the organisations model for providing individual sanitation in the urban and peri-urban slums and described how the individual sanitation model would be scaled up to cover Pune in a city-wide slum sanitation project.  The 15 DGC members cast their votes which resulted in a Shelter Associates victory.

For more information please click the following link:

http://www.dasra.org/toilets-and-Sanitation-2013

Feb 06, 2013

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Vegetating at Sanjay Nagar Patra Chawl in Sangli

During October 2011 the contractor constructing 93 residential units at Sanjay Nagar Patra Chawl in Sangli under the Government of India’s Integrated Housing and Slum Development Program stopped work due to a disagreement with the implementing agency, the local government, the Sangli, Miraj, & Kupwad Municipal Corporation (SMKMC), over cost escalation associated with both materials and labour.  The site has lain idle for almost 18 months.  The deadline for the contractor to recommence work has passed meaning that the contractor will be formally dismissed allowing a new contractor to be engaged to finish the work.

This picture was taken on Tuesday 29th January 2013.

Dec 19, 2012

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Shelter Associates Community Worker Presents at Sumpurna Slum Seminar

On the17th and 18th December 2012 Shelter Associates attended the Sumpurna Slum Seminar in Balgandhrav (a theatre in Shivaji Nagar, Pune) and Yashada (a government training institution in Pune).  Shelter Associates short film ‘Shelter Associates: Inclusive Planning for the Urban Poor’ was played at the event and was followed by a speech by one of Shelter Associates community workers, Mrs. Noorjahan Kaladagi.  This community worker has been associated with Shelter Associates since 2001 and presented to the United Nations Women in Delhi last year (December 2011).  During her speech Mrs. Noorjahan Kaladagi spoke about her experience of working with the government to implement projects in slums in her peri-urban area and highlighted the importance of monitoring (such as regular progress meetings) being an integral part of the implementation process.