Report on Safe Sanitation, Health and Dignity - Bulgaria Project
Report on the project "Safe Sanitation, Health and Dignity - Bulgaria" which is being carried out in three provinces in Bulgaria Stara Zagora (10 villages ), Pleven (2 villages) and Sofia, Pravets municipality (2 villages). The project is sponsored by Foundation Ensemble and coordinated by WECF.
21.11.2008 |Bistra Mihaylova
During the last 6 months (April September 2008) of its implementation the project has developed strong public participation and has started with the construction of several Ecosan systems in the project areas. Earth Forever Foundation is the main implementing organization in Bulgaria and long term partner of WECF in the country.
According
to the situation in the rural areas in Bulgaria and settled allocated budgets
in the rural schools, EFE has decided to
concentrate on the building of public toilet in villages, especially in
cultural clubs. The cultural houses in Bulgarian villages (Chitalishta) ) fullfil a very specific role in local communities ever since the Bulgarian Renaissance. Nowadays they are still the
focal point of any cultural activities in the community they usually keep a library in the villages, a place where extracurricular
activities for children are organized, folk groups meet, village activists
meet, etc.
Implementation
The Activities in Stara Zagora and Pleven municipalities for the last 6 monts of the project are as follows:
The village of of Zmeyovo has around 600 inhabitants,stays about 7 km away from Stara Zagora, and has active functioning cultural club. The village is famous in the region with its cultural and historical heritage and the cultural club is used throughout the whole year for different activities. The old toilet was in a very bad condition and in fact out of use, because the local people didn't want to use it. EFE and the local autjorities started the construction of a public ecosan toilet and it will have 1 toilet room for men with urinal, and 1 toilet room for women and wash basins. (The old toilet, and the starting phase of the foundation are shown on the pictures below)
The old toilet in the cultural club in Zmeyovo
In Kaloyanovets ( a village in Stara Zagora municipality with 1100 inhabitants
51 % of them form the Roma community), Earth Forever together with the local
mayor identified the need for the people
of having a public toilet and bath in
the village. A decision was taken for
construction a public toilet and public shower with a system for
wastewater treatment and reuse on the place of existing pit latrine for public
use. The pit latrine which the local citizens were using before was in poor
condition and its access was quite unpleasant. The new construction will have a
toilet and a shower and will serve also
to the local small administration, the staff of the church and the adjacent
administrative buildings. The former
condition of the old toilet is shown on the picture below (left one)
Earth Forever is still working on possibilities to include rural schools in the
project implementation, one of them might be the school in Pelishat, Pleven
municpality which is using a very
old pit latrine in the back yard of the school. The teachers nd the parents are interested to improve the situation and to install a toilet
inside the building. The mayor is very motivated to build this school toilet,
but local fundraising must be
obtained before the construction can be planned.
Durng the last project period EFE started the construction of 1 household toilet in the village of Lyulyak (Stara Zagora Municipality) and implementation of wastewater treatment facilities in Hristyanovo (1 private) and Kaloyanovets (1public). In Hristyanovo a small constructed wetland will be built for purifying the black water which come out of the house. The people who live there have a low flush toilets an they need a solution for wastewater treatment. The both purifying systems are shown below.
The construction of ecological gardens has started in 3 schools in the project villages in Stara Zagora municipality. Even though the situation regarding schools in rural areas is not clear in the country, WECF and its local partner EFE continue working in the schools in the regions, in order to raise the awareness among the young generation about composting and re-using of the nutrients.
The Activies in Pravets municipality for the last 6 monts of the project are as follows:
Ecoworld is working on a project for implementing a demonstration constructed wetland to solve the problem of the waste waters in a centre for children with mental disorders in the village of Vidrare. This project initiated on the demand of the mayor of Pravets after he participated at WECF seminar in Brussels, in January 2008.
Ecoworld together with WECF has elaborated technical requirements and cost analysis and is working on fundraising for this project. The local municipality will contribute in kid and financially. This activity will be completed among the SSHD project in case a co-funding is found for its implementation.
Capacity Buiding
In 6 schools in Stara Zagora and Pleven municipalities and 1 school in Pravets municipality a monitoring of the water was conducted. Because of the high interest in the communities, monitoring of ground water quality involved all inhabitants of several villages. Most active are women. The general conclusion is that the drinking water from the cetralized water supply is generally of good quality in the regions, but the samples taken from wells (underground water) and springs (surface water) are highly polluted with nitrates. Usually the villagers dont use their wells for drinking purposes, but still they irrigate their gardens with it. However it is a different situation with the springs: villagers sometimes use the springs (surface water) for drinking because of the better taste. The concentrations found in springs and wells in Pravets municipality vary between 15 to 250 mg/l ( the WHO quidelines for clean of nitrates water consider a norm of 50 mg/l as a safe one).
This confirms the necessity of conducting
water safety plans.
Water Safety Plans started to be developed in 7 project villages - Kaloyanovets, Rakitnitsa, Hrishteni, Pelishat, Todorovo, Slavyanovo and Vidrare.
Solid waste inventory was done in 6 project villages - Kaloyanovets, Rakitnitsa, Hrishteni, Pelishat, Todorovo, Slavyanovo.
Design and training programs were done for the following stakeholders: municipal and village mayors, representatives of local media, project villagers, households, village NGOs, village cultural clubs, teachers, schools. The thematic issues were on ecological sanitation principles.
The media coverage of the project is very high, there were published more than 90 articles about the activities of the local partners in Bulgarian national newspapers and magazines. The project activities have relevant support from the local municipalities, and together with them the project partners try to find co-financial solutions for successful implementation of the project on a local level. The project progress was presented on several international events.
Both organisations continue working on the project activities during the next project period.
For further information about news and projects related to Bulgaria, please visit the following web page:
For further information about the implementation of the project Safe Sanitation Health and Dignity in Romania and Ukraine please visit their web pages:
http://wecfeu/english/projects/countries/romania.php
http://wecf.eu/english/projects/countries/ukraine.php
Contact persons:
- Bistra Mihaylova, project officer Bulgaria: bistra.mihaylova(at)wecf.eu
- Anne Barre, project leader: anne.barre(at)wecf.eu
