Project Background
The project has delivered water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) to 512 people living in four remote rural villages, 48% of them being women and girls, who used to carry the most burden with water- related daily tasks. All project activities were carried out in a framework that has contributed to address the inequality related to gender and disability issues.
Though Timor-Leste is one of Australia’s closest neighbours, with only 2,000 kilometres separating the two countries, the differences in sanitation and clean water access are dramatic. 353,000 of Timor- Leste’s 1.2 million people currently live without access to clean water and 663,000 people do not have a decent toilet.
Timor-Leste’s shortage of infrastructure is due mainly to the 25-year war the country experienced prior to gaining independence in 2002. Although there has been considerable improvement in services and infrastructure since the violence ended, hundreds of thousands of people still live without basic essential services.
Project Activities
WaterAid worked with its local partners; Fundacao Hafoun Timor Lorosa’e in Liquica and Luta Ba Futuru in Manufahi to deliver water, sanitation and hygiene in four rural villages; Poerema in Liquica and Bazar Fatin, Beramana and Laklo in Manufahi, where 100% of households have built their own toilets. WaterAid helped the community members to establish a Water User Group (WUG) and has improved the understanding of men, women and children around the importance of sanitation, hygiene, disability inclusion and gender equality.
Sustainable water solutions
Gravity flow systems continue to be the most appropriate water solution in the Manufahi and Liquica district. The gravity flow systems have now been completed in Manufahi and Liquica districts. Clean water flowing down the mountains can be directed towards the villages using a system of pipes and stored in a central tank within each community, without needing large or costly machinery. In total, these systems include 4 reservoir tanks and 18 public taps to serve 512 people from 64 households with clean water. The systems’ running costs are minimal, and only simple maintenance tasks, like cleaning filters, are required.
Water User Groups were formed for the water supply system during the preparation period, so that they could lead the community during the implementation period and beyond. WaterAid staff, local NGO partners’ staff, government outreach staff, and district Water User Groups association have provided various trainings and direct support to the Water User Groups to empower them to fulfil their roles. This included training about their roles and responsibilities; basic finance training including cashbook management and reporting for money collection; technical training including topics such as construction logistics, warehouse management, plumbing, repairs, operations & maintenance; and training on hygiene.
As part of the water system construction process, water sources are protected as appropriate, using measures like geotextiles to filter particles and/or fences to prevent animals from contaminating the spring. Baseline water quality testing for microbiological parameters was completed in the communities, as well as end line testing. To help the communities understand water quality and how to protect their systems, a Water Safety Planning process has also been undertaken. This is where staff help community members identify and fix threats of contamination in the system. Further water resource management activities done in conjunction with implementing partners include Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) assessments and planting of seedlings by water sources to encourage groundwater recharge.
Sanitation and hygiene solutions
To improve sanitation and hygiene in the village, WaterAid took a community-led total sanitation approach. Hygiene promotion sessions were held throughout the project to help communities learn about the importance of building and using suitable toilets and washing their hands with soap and water at critical times, including after using a toilet and before eating a meal.
All 64 households in the communities now have constructed toilets. During this period, the local government team conducted visits and verified the Open Defecation Free (ODF) status of the community. Handwashing facility types vary from tippy-tap, bamboo, to bucket depending on the available local materials and community members’ accessibility to the local market.
During this period, communities have mostly been focusing on water supply system construction. While most of the sessions on hygiene promotion were completed during the first 6-month period, in this period sessions have been run specifically for women’s groups, to discuss issues such as menstrual hygiene management, which can be challenging to discuss as an entire community. Menstrual hygiene management is a critical issue for women and adolescent girls, particularly in rural areas due to limited access to information and taboos.
These lessons are taught using films, songs, games, and visual aids. In addition to general community sessions, WaterAid also held sessions for specific groups like women, children and households without toilets. Through the sessions, communities gained a greater understanding of how disease is spread, and learn disease prevention skills.
Reducing inequalities and empowering women
Throughout all of the community sessions, WaterAid has stressed the importance of equity and inclusion so that all men and women, including the elderly, children and disabled persons, have the opportunity to have their voice heard, access WASH services and be considered in the community decision-making process.
WaterAid has used a 5-stage gender equity process for promoting dialogue between men and women around gender, disability inclusion and WASH issues. This process is designed to increase women’s confidence to participate in community discussions and decisions, and as a result Water User Groups have 50% women members, and women are well represented in key positions such as chief, treasurer, secretary, and technical positions.
Sessions on disability inclusion and awareness raising have been run with support from Ra’es Hadomi Timor Oan, a local disability organization. These sessions included discussions on correct terminology about disability, a demonstration of disability-inclusive latrine construction, and discussions on how to make tap stands accessible to ensure all community members have their needs met and to reduce stigma against people with disabilities. Embedded into the project planning and sanitation stages of the project, WaterAid’s Community Dialogue Manual was used to facilitate opportunities for culturally appropriate and safe conversations between women and men about gender roles and decision making.
Through role-play, film, games and reflection, men and women develop new understandings of men’s and women’s rights and their value within the community and households. Women are also encouraged to take on leadership roles as members of the Water User Groups. As men and women take on new responsibilities and gain new insights, communities are able to take important steps toward gender equality and inclusion.
Community Impact
- 145 women and 102 girls no longer have to spend hours a day on dangerous terrain to collect water for their households. For some women this is a saving of around 6 hours of walking and carrying water per day!
- With more time, women are able to focus on working, growing food or caring for their families, and girls are able to continue their education.
- 5 springs are now appropriately protected from contamination, improving the quality of water supplied to 512 community members and decreasing the likelihood of diarrhoea outbreaks.
- 64 households have built handwashing facilities, preventing the spread of disease and improving the health of the 512 community members.
- 64 households have new, safe toilets, dramatically decreasing open defecation in each village and making the community a cleaner place to live.
- 512 people have been reached with hygiene messaging and are now less vulnerable to disease.
- 125 school aged children are now able to bathe before they attend school, increasing their dignity, happiness, hygiene and health.
- Men and women are developing a greater understanding of the contributions women and girls make to the household. Men are gradually sharing more household chores and becoming more supportive of women taking part in decision-making at the household and community level, and women have been empowered to take on new roles, such as being part of the Water User Groups.
- WaterAid has strongly promoted community ownership of water facilities by including the community members during the design and construction stages and taking steps to handover management to the Water User Groups. This will contribute to the long-term sustainability of clean water access in the village.
- 512 people have been reached with information about the importance of people with disabilities and women inclusion in community meeting and decision making processes.
- 145 women and adolescent girls have been reached with information about menstrual hygiene management, enabling them to better understand and manage their menstruation with dignity and confidence.
- Through the gender equity process, both men and women have gained a greater understanding of the contributions women and girls make to the household, and why it is important that women are included in the decision making process. Women assisted in the construction process and have been empowered to occupy 50% of roles in the Water User Groups.
- 4 communities have a greater awareness of the need to manage their water usage, and some community members have begun installing household kitchen gardens, a small vegetable plot used to source herbs, vegetables and fruits.
Project Challenges and Solutions
The mountainous geography and variable climate of Timor-Leste means that during the wet season some villages are not accessible by vehicles. This meant that the work had to be carefully planned and managed to ensure the material delivery was complete before the onset of the wet season. Communities put forth their effort to help this process in many ways, for example fixing or opening temporary roads so that vehicles could have temporary access to drop construction materials. The community also assisted with transporting some materials manually when necessary.
When WaterAid and partners first began community meetings, it was difficult to get women to speak up and participate. However, throughout the various activities, including the gender equity process, women have gradually grown in confidence and now hold half of the positions on the WUG, as well as assisting with the construction itself.
Through the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) triggering campaigns, all households have now constructed their own toilets. Community-led total sanitation is an approach WaterAid uses to improve sanitation and hygiene practices in a community. It focuses on behaviour change of an entire community to end the practice of open defecation. Triggering campaigns are central to the process as ways of initiating community interest in ending open defecation and support a community-centred change that is spontaneous and long- term. Some households built basic pit latrines, which can quickly become unusable without proper maintenance or as a result of the rain. This has meant that by the end of the construction period some toilets were no longer functioning. However, later this year, the local government teams will return to the community to encourage households to climb the sanitation ladder and install improved toilets to prevent this re-occurring in the future.
Case Study
The community chief, Manuel Ornai, 32 year-old father of two young children, explained that over the past decade, community members of Bazar-Fatin had to walk long distances to collect safe water from other places for domestic use. Such a situation was very stressful for them, where the men were working in their family farms, and women, like his wife, suffered the extra burden of collecting water, resulting in them having hardly any spare time. Women had to struggle to complete their domestic housework, prepare meals or coffee for their family or guests, and take care of their young children.
As a result of not having nearby water access, it was common to see children in his community not taking a bath before going to school.
Most parents did not want their children to walk alone to the natural spring or river to take a bath because it is not considered safe for children. In addition, many residents did not have toilets: whether elderly people or children, all of them used to go in the bush area or pigs’ nest.
Manuel said that the community members are very pleased to have water access around their houses and this means a lot to them, particularly to the women and children. He said: “This means we can use the toilet. We can also stop walking miles to collect water like we used to”. The project has inspired children to have and to use toilets, as well as to use the handwashing facilities to wash their hands before having meals. Children are now able to take a bath by themselves and are encouraged to look after their personal hygiene.
What Next?
The communities agreed that households would provide monthly contributions to operation and maintenance of the systems. This enables the Water User Groups to operate and perform minor maintenance to the system such as identifying problems when the systems break, purchasing spare parts and repairing the systems. For the Manufahi communities the contribution is $0.25 per household per month, and for Liquica it is $0.50 (the average monthly salary in Timor-Leste is US$225).
Can I Visit the Project?
You are more than welcome to visit the project. Please contact WaterAid directly.
Project Background
Timor-Leste gained independence in 2002 following a 25 year war with neighbouring Indonesia. During this battle, Timor-Leste's infrastructure was badly damaged. While there has been basic development and growth since, three in ten people still lack clean water and over half the population has nowhere to go to the toilet.
The country’s mountainous terrain, and rural population make the problem of bringing services such as water and toilets worse. With a population of 1.2 million, 71 per cent of people live in hard to reach rural communities.
Modern day conveniences in remote areas are rare, including running water and household toilets. Families depend on lakes and walking long distances to streams to collect their water, the bush for their toilets, firewood to fuel their stoves for cooking and subsistence farming for their food.
Challenges in These Communities
Families living in remote rural areas are extremely vulnerable to any changes in the weather. In particular, if the dry season continues for longer than expected, families wait longer periods until they are able to start growing their next crop. In this time, food supplies from the last season begin to run out, and families go hungry.
Similarly, lakes and streams begin to dry-up and women have no choice other than to walk longer distances in search of water – up to three hours. With no guarantee the water is safe to drink, the risk of falling ill from contaminated water far outweighs having no water at all. Collecting water continues to be a real and on-going challenge for people in Timor-Leste, especially women for whom the burden of collecting water falls on them.
The specific challenges of not having water include:
- The task of collecting household water to drink, cook and bathe in falls largely on women and girls. Women and Girls walk long distances through dangerous terrains and spend hours collecting water which precludes them from participating in more productive activities such as engaging in employment.
- Without a continuous supply of water, communities are unable to water their crops or grow vegetables and fruits to feed their families. Children become malnourished and have a limited capacity to develop and grow to their full potential.
- Without toilets, people have no choice other than to defecate in the nearby bushland. This can be extremely dangerous for women and children as they are vulnerable to attack. In addition, open defecation contaminates water supplies and spreads disease.
- Chronic diseases such as diarrhoea or worm infestations prevents children from absorbing nutrients in their food. Undernourishment is a cause of stunting which affects around 50 per cent of children in Timor-Leste.
- As people and their carers spend time at home recovering from illness spread through contaminated water, they are not at work or at school. This affects the entire household and eventually traps the family in the poverty cycle.
Project Objective and Outcomes
By giving communities access to clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene, the project will create opportunities for families to break free from the cycle of poverty and illness.
Expected outcomes include:
- Water close to home means women and children will be less prone to injury and abuse as they no longer need to make the treacherous journey up slippery mountains and steep terrains to collect water.
- Women no longer carry the burden of collecting water at sources that can be hours away. Women will have more time to pursue employment, tend to their gardens and invest time caring for their families.
- Children, especially girls will go to school instead of collecting water. As the task of collecting water falls on women and girls, fewer girls will drop out of school meaning their educational outcomes improve.
- Reliable and sustainable sources of water means families can grow fruits, vegetables and grains. This will provide healthy food to the household and income as families can sell surplus supplies at the local markets.
- With an improved and reliable source of food, children will have a greater chance of growing strong and healthy.
- Toilets will restore privacy, dignity and safety. Women and young children in particular, will no longer have to fear going out into the bush at night to go to the toilet.
- Families are no longer defecating in the open. Villages are cleaner and families are less vulnerable to disease. This is especially important for young children as frequent outbreaks of diarrhoea can stunt growth or affect education as children spend time at home recovering from their illness instead of being at school.
- As communities are no longer drawing water from nearby lakes and streams, natural water resources will be better protected for future generations.
- Women trained as Water User Group members will have a greater say around key decisions in their community, and will become role models for younger women in their villages.
- By handing over ownership and management of water supplies to community Water User Groups and local government, communities will have the capacity and support to manage and maintain their water systems. This means people will continue to benefit from sustainable water supplies for generations to come.
What's Covered in Project Costs
Footprints funding will contribute to overall project including, installation of four complete water systems – one in each village. At the same time, funding will help families to build their own toilets.
Finally, people will learn about the importance of practicing good personal and household hygiene to stop the spread of disease. Activities in each village include:
- Installing a gravity-fed water system and tap-stands close to households.
- Testing water quality before and after the installation of each water system.
- Establishing a Water User Group in each village and training members to: manage fair and equitable supplies of water in their community, maintain their new system and to carry out minor repairs. We will also connect the group to local government in case larger repairs are required.
- Integrating water resource management training, and educating communities on climate change and resilience.
- Holding awareness events and learning sessions around the importance of using a toilet. A community-led total sanitation approach will inspire and empower communities to stop open-defecation and to build and use their own private toilets.
- Supporting a local sanitation supply chain through marketing and distribution of toilet seats and parts to ensure families have the equipment they need to build and maintain their own toilets.
- Holding hygiene promotion sessions in each village to support healthy hygiene behaviours, like handwashing with soap, cleaning and handling kitchen utensils and safe disposal of household waste.
- Supporting the community to manage their water and changed sanitation and hygiene behaviours.
Project Partners and Community Involvement
Two local key partners will help WaterAid to implement this project. Our partners, Fundação Hafoun Timor Lorosa’e and Luta Ba Futuru are local NGO’s who have a deep connection to Timor-Leste and are specialists in implementing water and sanitation in Timor-Leste. Our partners understand the people; their language, customs and their challenges. This helps to engage communities and contributes to a more successful and sustainable outcome.
Community participation is key to our success. In each community, prior to commencing a project, we ensure that the community’s particular needs are heard and identified. Through a process of community engagement, we invite the community to play an integral part of implementing the project with us and our partners.
By securing a sense of ownership at the beginning the project, community members are much more likely to feel connected to the project, which brings the chance of a sustainable solution much closer. All members of the community will be invited to contribute to the project, whether it be helping to lay pipes, paint and decorate water tanks or provide meals for the workers.
At completion of the project, we hand the water system over to the community and district council for on-going management. The occasion is celebrated in a special community celebration.
Part of a Larger Strategy
The delivery of this project is aligned to the Government of Timor-Leste’s National Strategic Development Plan 2011-2030 that aims to reach universal coverage of improved water and sanitation by 2030. This plan is implemented through the National Basic Sanitation Policy and Rural Water Supply Guideline, which project activities support.