SulabhENVIS Newsletter

October - December 2009 ISSUE:

AWARDS ON WATER, SANITATION AND HYGIENE (WASH): Stockholm Water Prize: The Stockholm Water Prize is the world's most prestigious prize for outstanding achievement in waterrelated activities. The annual prize includes a USD 150,000 award and a crystal sculpture specially designed. The Stockholm Water Prize Laureate is announced each March in connection with the UN World Water Day and honoured each August at a Royal Prize Ceremony and Banquet in the Stockholm City Hall during the World Water Week in Stockholm. Over the years Stockholm Water Prize Laureates have represented regions from around the world and a broad range of waterrelated activities, professions and scientific disciplines.

July - September 2009 ISSUE:

Sanitation and Hygiene During Emergency Situations: A natural disaster, such as floods, cyclone, earthquakes, droughts, tornadoes, etc, devastates vast/ enormous areas, depriving millions of people from their daily lives. People are evacuated from their homes and taken to temporary shelter. Water and sewage systems may be disrupted or made inoperable; gas, electric and phone services may be severely affected; food supplies may be cut off and there may be widespread destruction of property.
India has been traditionally vulnerable to natural disasters on account of its unique geo-climatic conditions. Floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes and landslides have been recurrent phenomena. About 60% of the landmass is prone to earthquakes of various intensities; over 40 million hectares is prone to floods; about 8% of the total area is prone to cyclones and 68% of the 1 area is susceptible to drought . During the decade 1990-2000, every year on an average about 4344 people lost their lives and about 30 million people got affected by disasters. The loss in terms of private, community and public assets has been astronomical.

April - June 2009 ISSUE:

Online Database on Hygiene and Sanitation: Health and Hygiene - Website: http://www.who.int/whosis/en/
WHOSIS, the WHO Statistical Information System, is an interactive database bringing together core health statistics for the 193 WHO Member States. It comprises more than 100 indicators, which can be accessed by way of a quick search, by major categories, or through user-defined tables. The data can be further filtered, tabulated, charted and downloaded. The data are also published annually in the World Health Statistics Report released in May.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene - Website: http://www.unicef.org/wash/index_3951.html
UNICEF’s long-standing support to improving WASH stems from a firm conviction, based on evidence that these interventions are central to ensuring the rights of children to survive, grow and develop into healthy and fulfilled citizens of the world. This publication outlines UNICEF's activities in water supply, sanitation and hygiene, showing their importance to UNICEF's overall mission, against the perspective of the global challenge of achieving the MDGs.

January - March 2009 ISSUE:

Need for Sewer system, Sewage Treatment System, Future scenario of sewage management: In earlier day’s sewage treatment was meant for disposal of raw sewage in water bodies such as river, oceans, ponds, lakes, etc. The first sanitation systems have been found at prehistoric Middle East and the surrounding areas. First time an inverted siphon system along with glass covered clay pipes was in the palace of Crete, Greece. Ancient Minoan civilization had stone sewer while roman towns and garrisons in UK had complex sewer networks. Indus valley civilization had complex network of brick lined sewage drains and had outdoor flush toilets connected to this network. In Indus valley civilization the urban areas were provided with public and private baths. A significant development was the construction of a network of sewers to collect waste water.

October-December 2008 ISSUE:

SANITATION: Achieving the targets: India has one billion plus population. Census of 2001 states that roughly 72 per cent of India’s population lives in more than 5,50,000 villages and the rest in about 5,161 cities. As India becomes more populous, its growth poses significant challenges to the provision of environmental services such as water, sanitation, solid waste management, and drainage.

Lack of adequate sanitation is a pressing challenge in both rural and urban India. Everyday, an estimated 1,000 children under five die of diarrhoea alone, a preventable disease. Sanitation related illnesses in both children and adults drain productivity and income, ultimately perpetuating poverty.

July-September 2008 ISSUE:

Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion with focus on Hand Washing: Sanitation and hygiene are essential to the public health and development. Every year millions of people die from diseases associated with poor sanitation and hygiene which negatively impact food security, livelihood and income and educational opportunities for poor families. The children particularly face these problems which affect their health and learning capacity.
According to The World Health Organization (WHO), diarrhoea kills almost 2 million children every year, making it the second leading killer of children worldwide. UNICEF estimates that diarrhoea alone kills one child every 30 seconds. The vast majority of child mortality occurs among the world’s poorest populations in low- and middle-income countries. Diarrhoea is both preventable and treatable, yet families in developing countries continue to pay the price of this disease in lost lives, missed school days, reduced resistance to infections, impaired growth, malnutrition and poverty.

June 2008 SPECIAL ISSUE:

World Environment Day, commemorated each year on 5 June, is one of the principal vehicles through which the United Nations stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and enhances political attention and action.
The World Environment Day slogan for 2008 is Kick the Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy. Recognising that climate change is becoming the defining issue of our era, UNEP is asking countries, companies and communities to focus on greenhouse gas emissions and how to reduce them. The World Environment Day will highlight resources and initiatives that promote low carbon economies and life-styles, such as improved energy efficiency, alternative energy sources, forest conservation and eco-friendly consumption.

April-June 2008 ISSUE:

SANITATION: DEFINITION, PROBLEMS, ECONOMICS AND SOLUTIONS - The title of the newsletter – Sanitation: Definition, Problems, Economics and Solutions, elaborates the basics of sanitation, its problems and the different sanitation tools and technologies to access safe and hygienic sanitation facilities. Without improved sanitation, people suffer from ill health, lost income, inconvenience and indignity. Yet billions of people around the world lack basic sanitation. In recognition of the urgent need for greater political awareness and action on sanitation, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation. The goal is to raise awareness and accelerate progress towards the MDG target of halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to basic sanitation by 2015.

In recognition of the large sanitation shortage, and the declaration of 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation, the Joint Monitoring Report 2008 by UNICEF and WHO has a special focus on sanitation. JMP 2008 opens with a review of the current status of sanitation and an assessment of progress towards the sanitation target included in the MDGs.

January - March 2008 ISSUE:

India has witnessed a significant achievement in many of the millennium development goals like reduction of extreme hunger and poverty by increasing self-sufficiency in food grains, increased life expectancy, sustainable management of its natural resources, rapid expansion in the urban, energy and industrial sectors, improved child and maternal health, increased universal primary and higher education, advancement in the field of science and technology, increased access to water and sanitation facilities, increased participation of women in social and political arena and above all a multicultural and religious vibrant social democracy.

October - December 2007 ISSUE:

Adopting a recommendation made by the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB), the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, December 20, 2006, declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation (IYS).
Dismayed by halting progress on achieving the Millennium Development Goal target of halving by 2015 the number of people without sustainable access to basic sanitation, UNSGAB's members began advocating for the IYS at the World Water Forum in March 2006. More recently, UNSGAB included the recommendation that the UN General Assembly declare the IYS part of its global work plan (commonly known as the Hashimoto Action Plan).

JULY- SEPTEMBER 2007 ISSUE:

Availability of basic civic facilities, like potable water, water disposal and sanitation, are vital human needs for health and efficiency of human beings. Inability of the city management and city institutions to provide their facilities to their citizens leads to high incidence of diseases and mortality rates. The problems which the women and children face in these conditions are much worse. An analysis of the performance of various “total environment schemes” in the country carried out by the Planning Commission, Government of India, brings out that sanitation programme has not been pursued in an integrated manner.

APRIL- JUNE 2007 ISSUE:

Majority of population about 72% lives in villages. Village panchayat, women members, youth  and retired persons in the village can play a vital role in improving the existing status of environmental sanitation of village which includes safe disposal of various type of waste, human waste, solid waste, gaseous waste  and liquid waste), hygienic habits and safe drinking water.

JANUARY- MARCH 2007 ISSUE:

SulabhENVIS Centre in collaboration with the Sulabh International Academy of Environmental Sanitation conducted an Awareness Campaign and Needs Assessment Survey for Sanitation in 10 villages of Rourkela for the Steel Authority of India, Rourkela, Orissa in January-February 2007.

OCTOBER- DECEMBER 2006 ISSUE:

Part 1:General Introduction

Part 2: Country Data

JULY- SEPTEMBER 2006 ISSUE:

In 2001, India had sanitation coverage of 36.4 %, urban and rural coverage being 73.7
percent and 21.9 percent respectively1. In fact, the country has been ranked first in
the worst places in the world for sanitation as a total number of people lacking
sanitation and 20th for sanitation provision as a percentage of population lacking
access2. In such a scenario the current case study presents the promising prospect of
community sanitation blocks being maintained by women volunteers in Urban Slums of
Trichy, a city located in South India. Facilitated by the NGO Gramalaya, these women
organised into Self Help Groups and Sanitation & Hygiene Education (SHE) Teams, are
managing the community toilets and through the revenue generated they have constructed community halls where hygiene education is provided to community members. It is a case worthy of emulation elsewhere in India and other countries lacking sanitation, whereby women administer sanitation provision for the urban slums and raise revenue for proper maintenance as well as other initiatives for up gradation of the environmental conditions, in effect bettering the quality of life in the slums.

APRIL- JUNE 2006 ISSUE:

Compendium of Photographs: Hygiene and Sanitation (India, Afghanistan and Thailand)

JANUARY-MARCH 2006 ISSUE:

In June 2006, Canada will host the third session of the World Urban Forum
(WUF3) in Vancouver. WUF3 will mark the 30th anniversary of the first UN conference on human settlements, which was also held in Vancouver and led to the creation of UN-HABITAT. For five days participants at WUF3 will identify issues affecting cities and share lessons, best practices and policies. Participants will return home after WUF3 with ideas for action to improve the quality of life in their communities and cities.

APRIL - JULY 2005 ISSUE:

To motivate and educate students, highlighting the fact that low-cost and affordable technologies are the only answer to solve the sanitation problem in developing countries, and to provide impetus for the development of systems that are applicable to prevailing cultural and environmental conditions, Sulabh International has set up the SULABH INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENVIRONMENTAL SANITATION, which is the first academic institute in the world exclusively focussing on sanitation in all its manifest and subtle dimensions. It intends to provide some key initiatives to advance the objectives of sanitation education on a national and international scale; in particular, the achievement of a community committed to ecologically sustainable development, especially in regard to sanitation.

As part of the larger programme to enhance the goal of Sanitation to All, Sulabh International, in collaboration with United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN HABITAT), recently conducted an International Workshop on Sanitation Technologies (31 January to 12 February, 2005) whereby training was provided to 23 sector professionals of 5 African nations. UN-HABITAT chose Sulabh to pass on the experience it has in the sanitation sector by imparting knowledge and technical skills so that Sulabh technologies can be implemented, albeit with suitable modifications, in African nations. Sulabh will play the role of a facilitator in this long term programme and also aid in the evaluation after successful implementation of the same. It is for this purpose that this brief water and sanitation status report of the 5 African nations that took part in the training workshop has been prepared.

JAN- MARCH ISSUE 2005:

It is a complete reference on the database of books and Write -ups related to HYGIENE and SANITATION. The abstracts of different books and write-ups are mentioned.

The Third Issue (Jan'2004) is a newsletter which deals in WATER-The Elixir of Life: An Integrated Approach. It highlights features like Sources of Water, Water Quality Criteria, How Water gets Contaminated and its Prevention. It also includes Freshwater Pollution, Diseases caused by contaminated water use, Water related diseases. Different methods of Water treatment. Augmentation of Water Supplies: Conservation, Recycling & Reuse. Water Management: Public-private partnerships in Water & Sanitation. Milestones of Water Resource Management in India. Sulabh Initiatives & Strategies in Conservation & Augmentation of Water. Apart from these above listed topics, different water related website names are also mentioned.

The Second Issue (July-Oct '2003) is a technical write-up on SEWAGE TREATMENT & TECHNOLOGY, and it deals with the methods of sewage treatment with special emphasis on the situation and status of STP's in Delhi.

SulabhENVIS Centre at Sulabh International Institute of Health and Hygiene, has launched two issues of its Quarterly Newsletter.

The subject area of the Centre, as assigned by the MoEF is :

1. Hygiene
2. Sanitation and Environment
3. Sewage Treatment Systems and Technology.

The Inaugural Issue focuses on the Origin, History, Aims and Objectives of ENVIS in general and the SulabhENVIS Centre in particular. It also a gives a brief review of the Sulabh International Social Service Organisation.

NOTE: Some issues of SulabhENVIS Newsletter is in the hard copy format, if not found here then please make a request for that so that it can be made available for your reference/use.