The project aims to provide the portable water supply to two communities integrated with sanitation and hygiene components.
The community at Kaimeta (an aldeia) had no proper water supply system and were dependent on temporary water supply systems, which were prone to wide-scale microbial contamination.
Project outcomes
All homes were provided with potable water supply by way of 12 community water points constructed at convenient locations in the village. These taps immediately reduced the walking time and distance endured by the residents of Kaimeta collecting water.
The water points have a reserve tank to collect and store water for the ongoing convenience of the households they serve.
As is common across Timor-Leste and in many developing countries, almost all of the community members defecated in open spaces. Diarrhoea is the most prevalent and problematic disease in rural Timor-Leste and can be easily prevented through effective sanitation and improved hygiene practices.
17 toilets were built in Kaimeta as part of this project, making the village effectively open defecation free.
As a part of hygiene education program, all the community members received education on safe hygiene behaviour. As a result, community members constructed tippy taps (a foot operated handwashing system made with locally, and often free, materials) in their households and toilets.
The most important and life-saving hygiene practice is hand washing at critical times (after defecation and before eating). It is a fact that hand washing at critical times alone can reduce the incidence of diarrheal diseases by 40%.
Challenges:
As with much development work, there have been challenges associated with this project, including:
• Availability of spare parts: spare parts are not available in the district town. This will add a slight impediment to prompt repairs of the systems.
• Sustainability of hygiene behaviour change: Community members tend to easily go back to their previous unsafe hygiene behaviours. WaterAid will continue to work with the residents of Kaimeta to ensure these behaviours are being practiced.
Successes/attitudes of community:
Kaimeta has been a great success. Its success is the fact that having been previously deprived of the basic human right to safe water, this community of 197 people now have access to safe water, as well as sanitation facilities. The project itself had a high degree of community engagement, with the members of the village being part of the planning and implementation of the project. Local materials have been used where appropriate and available.
This level of community engagement is not uncommon, as there always a real need for these services and the community’s involved are usually eager to get involved and participate with the project.
Role of the partners:
The role of local partners is instrumental to successful implementation of this project. Local partner staff know the local context, language and culture. This, along with their technical skills, has contributed to the success of this project.
However, the local partners lack in-depth technical, community mobilization and hygiene promotion skills. WaterAid mentors the partners throughout the project implementation.
WaterAid Australia have established strong links with other donors and aid organisations who are working to meet other development needs of the community, such as small scale agriculture and micro-economies. The confidence that the communities have developed having successfully completed their water and sanitation project continues to motivate them and has seen them lobby for other development activities in the community. WaterAid Australia aims to capitalize this community energy during two years of follow up.
What's next for this project?
In order to maintain momentum and enthusiasm for the project (and subsequent utilisation), WaterAid Australia provides follow up visits and “hands on” support for two years.including in their collection of maintenance funding, technical input if they are encountering any problems and information about where to source spare parts.
The community have committed to adding funds to a communal pot in order to maintain facilities in the future.
The Footprints funding will contribute to the delivery water, sanitation and hygiene to 1 village in Liquica district.
Objectives & outcomes
The primary of objective of this project is to help all community members in one village gain access to a supply of safe, sustainable water through the construction of gravity feed water facilities. Other objectives include helping all community members in the village gain access to low cost, low maintenance hygienic latrines through community led total sanitation approach and to improve their hygienic practices and environmental sanitation, focusing on hand washing at key times, penning animals and reducing places for mosquitoes to breed.
The outcomes of this project will be:
Six monthly monitoring of projects report household latrines are being used and maintained in a hygienic condition (at least 70% of all latrines), and a representative sample of villagers are able to explain the critical times when they should be washing their hands.
Background
Timor-Leste is one of the youngest and poorest countries in the world. Among the population of around one million, 60% is illiterate, whilst 40% of children are malnourished.
The average family size is 7.8, and the population is growing rapidly. Only 69% of Timorese have access to water supply and about 50% have access to adequate sanitation.
The Government of Timor-Leste has committed to meet the Millennium Development Goal targets in both water and sanitation. The majority of Timor-Leste’s population live in rural areas, and sanitation coverage in these areas is minimal. Only 40% of the rural population has access to adequate sanitation facilities compared to 76% in district town and urban areas. Within rural areas, sanitation coverage varies, with remote villages having comparatively less sanitation coverage than villages close to district towns.
Target communities such as the one Footprints funding will support are selected on an annual basis at a workshop with local district and sub-district officials where agreement is made on a priority list of villages to be supported by WaterAid in the forthcoming year. Working through local NGO partners, WaterAid supports a process of participatory community engagement, and conducts baseline studies in each village alongside technical feasibility studies of potential water sources and systems. Options are discussed with communities and agreement reached regarding roles and responsibilities. Project planning follows Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) procedures and ends up with a Community Action Plan (CAP) for project implementation.
Partners
WaterAid has been working with local partner organisations in Timor-Leste since 2005. These partners work with communities to implement projects directly. WaterAid has found that it is possible to bring about sustainable changes both in practice and policies in water supply, hygiene awareness and sanitation through appropriate technologies and approaches that are community-based and community-led.
A major element of WaterAid’s broader program in Timor Leste is to build the capacity and skill levels of local NGO partner staff. WaterAid will provide these local NGOs with both formal training and on the job support in order to build their skills and capacity.
Community involvement
The project seeks to provide significant and on-going support to the community water and sanitation committees (GMF). Practical training and regular mentoring of GMF members aims to ensure that they have the confidence, capacity and community-backing to maintain the water supply systems and conduct repairs when needed. A WaterAid ‘boundary rider’ will also visit each community at least once every six months for 2 years after construction has been completed, in order to support the GMF members with any challenges that they are experiencing, as well as monitor the maintenance of latrines. Where necessary, the Boundary Rider can support the GMF in re-igniting the communities desire and commitment to maintain a hygienic village environment.