Haiti Sit Rep 5. Life in Auto Mecca camp

Hi Finn, These are a couple of young girls I met at Auto Mecca. The sun was shining then, but that night it flooded and many homes were washed away, maybe theirs.

This is my last night in Haiti…as long as everything goes to plan that is. Tomorrow I fly from here to santa Domingo and from there to London, tho that’ll be very late in the evening and I won’t get to London until well in to the next day. I’ve got to then spend a day or two debriefing with the Red Cross, which is to say telling the all the things I’ve been telling you…and probably a few more, and then getting myself checked out to see if I have any dodgy diseases…there’s always a risk of that in places like this…beter safe than sorry!

So I thought I’d give you an insight in to life in one of the camps, Auto Mecca. If I get time I’ll try to tell you some things about the rest of haiti that I managed to see, and finally, though not right now, I’ll tell you about la Piste…but that will have to wait for all sorts of reasons.

Where people live.

As I have said Auto Mecca has approximately 15,000 inhabitants. They come from many different parts of Porte Au Prince and are of many different social classes. All are cramped together with little or no space between them and certainly no privacy.

An alleyway between homes.

If they are lucky, these people have received a cover of plastic sheeting. I say lucky as this gives them more chance of protecting themselves from their however several do not even have that and will struggle living beneath cardboard, bits of plastic and corregated iron sheeting.

The insides of their homes, as this is generally where thay are now having to call home, is a mangle of rags and bags. Pieces of torn material, a curtain here, or a length of clothe there. Things they have scavenged or saved from their destroyed homes. As yet they have no mosquito nets as these have not been distributed yet, even given the proximity of the rainy season.

A man’s home is his castle.
Given the damp and basic conditions of their living environment, I can only imagine that they are plagued at night with mosquitoes and we are of course expecting an epidemic of malaria and dengue fever. We know also that this will affect majoritively young children, killing many.

However having said this, don’t think for an instant that this means that people do not do their utmost to try to keep their homes and their local environment clean. There isn’t a house you go in where mothers or children aren’t washing, sweeping, cleaning and tidying. In short doing their utmost to retain cleanliness and dignity despite these simply attrocious conditions. Doors are formed out of whatever is available, pictures cut from magazines bedeck flimsey walls, shreds of materials provide a semblence of colour and homeliness.

People and work.

Women at work...this time washing. Can you see anything else they might be doing?

It’s surprising how much work and endevour goes on in a camp. Quite apart from the unending attempts to keep a home clean there are all sorts of activities that people are involved in, to try anywhich way to add a few additional gourd (that’s the loacl currency) to the house hold income.

Obviously women bear the brunt of this, especially around the home. They and children will collect water, wash clothes, cook and find food and charcole, care for the children and of course, keep the house clean.

You might wonder what men do…well that’s probably a good question!

Selling Food.

Obviously there is no social security here. People have to do whatever possible to make money. Some sell small containers of food like this guy, others offer other services, as you’ll see below.

It’s usual for us to have many, many people come up to us daily, asking for work. Recently though we’ve had more and more asking for food. My fear is that the scarce resources that have enabled people to survive to this point, that they have saved, borrowed or possibly stolen previously, are depleating. I suspect that people are beginning to go with fewer meals and that we may see the beginings of malnutrition very soon.

Special Pedicure.

I must admit that I’m always really impressed at the resourcefulness of refugees or displaced populations. No sooner have they settled somewhere, then they begin to find ways of generating an income. The lady who ran this manicurring business spoke near perfect French. I asked her if she got a lot of customers, given that this might seem very much a luxury, given the circumstances. She replied that she was doing the best that she could to make ends meet and that although she wasn’t terribly busy, you shouldn’t doubt peoples desire to let whatever beauty or special care in to their lives, even in a displaced peoples camp.

Snake Man.

I have to say though Finn, the most amazing income generating scheme I saw in this camp was the chap above, Snake Man (Arghhhhhhhhh…imagine a mask from him!). I turned up at the camp one morning and there he was, covered with snakes all over him, even putting them in his mouth. You can imagine he got a pretty large crowd.

Then, when he’d gotten his crowd he brought out his potions which were cures for skin problems and were, he claimed, made from the venom of the snake. You took the small ampule and rubbed it on the effected area.

As I discovered whilst working looking at health seeking behaviour in haiti, or where people people go if they are sick, traditional healers play a significant role in the health care of the population. We identified 3 in Auto Mecca, though I didn’t get to meet any..other than this chap.
Traditional beliefs are very strong, infact there is the Boco, who are traditional priests, Voodoo priests, who, for certain illnesses intern a person in the ground for 3 days!!

Umm, not sure I fancy that one myself!

Services Provided in the Camp.

Camp Clinic.

As you can imagine, even given that there are only 15,000 people living in this camp, there is a need for extensive public services if we are to succeed in making an existance there not only bearable but liveable.

In developing countries, illness is a real issue. It’s amazing, but even though I worked for child focussed agencies (SCF) before, I didn’t really consider the very special needs of very young children before you came along. But now I can’t imagine how young children and their parents cope.

Disease and illness is everywhere, no matter how hard we try to prevent it and the distress it causes is terrible. I was in a hospital in this camp just the other day and saw a young child screaming in pain, doctors, nurses and his mother doing their best to comfort him. But he kept screaming and curling his body. I couldn’t help it, I just started crying thinking of you in a similar position. I hope it never comes to that.

Latrine Cleaner.
Which is why we’re involved in public health, we’re trying to prevent illness, though with the onset of the rains and the mess there is in so many camps, I think we’re fighting a losing battle.This lady is part of the fight. She’s a latrine cleaner and a very important person, as you’ll have gathered if you read the other blog about latrines and hygiene promotion.

In a camp of 15,000 her and her teams ensure that the toilets are spotless and she does an excellent job. I only wish we could have gotten so far in la Piste.

One of our clean up teams.

Another means by which we try to help prevent disease, notably malaria, Denge fever, Scabies, diarrhoea and typhoid, is through the employment of camp clean up teams. These guys collect litter, clean up waste (which can be anything from plastic cups to poo..yuk..but a very important job) and empty the bins we put throughout the camp.

Oh and by the way, in the background you can see a school put up by UNICEF. Of course it’s essential to not only keep you young kids educated, but also off the streets…there are thousands of you in the camps, certainly more of you than there are adults.

Lots of rubbish.

If we don’t get this job done well, things can get to look like this, or worse. Imagine living next to this? No way, Jose! By doing our utmost with the community to keep the camp clean, we can help to prevent flies and mosquitoes and those are the real bad guys.

water Collection.


As I said before, collecting water is usually the job of women and children and as the saying goes, without water there is no life. The same is true in the camps. One of the first things we have to out in are water points. These are essential for washing, cooking, cleaning and of course drinking. Depending on the camps water can be accessed at specific times, to avoid congestion all day, or it can be available 24/7.

Whatever happens, you have to get water to populations. This can be through filling huge bladders or tanks, or by trucking it in daily…often it’s a mix of the two. And of course you have to treat it and ensure it doesn’t get contaminated at any point before it’s used…that’s really difficult.

Living and Passtimes.

Guys Playing Cards.

For adults there’s not much in the way of leisure time in a camp, tho people do do the best they can. Obviously there’s lots of work to do, a lot of it by women or children. I caught these chaps sharing a game of cards. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Other than that people who can read, or if they can’t, listen to stories, books, the bible or the news paper. There’s always music, beit from a radio or a set of tin drums or a crackly cd player.

Children.

Children playing football.

But for children, well there are all sorts of passtimes, everywhere kids have their imaginations and find fun in the strangest of places. Of course there is always football, even if that football is a muddle of sheets of paper and cloth bound with sticky tape or string..and it’s always the boys who are playing this. Can you spot the ball Finn? Now there’s an old game.

Children washing.

The thing is for children in the camp, there isn’t the time to just play all the time, they’ve got responsibilities. Younger children are looked over by older children who will ensure that their siblings are fed, groomed, dressed and washed. Often there are large families, so it’s important that kids look after kids to leave as much time for their mother to do all the things she has to…though often, kids will also do cleaning the house and cooking…you’ve already seen how they carry water, and that’s heavy.

Mother and daughter building a house.

This young girl I met with her mother one hot afternoon. The sun was blazing down and I was gulping water just to keep standing. But even in the heat of the day, this young girl was busy helping her mum build their house. She was banging nails in to wood, covering it with sheeting and collecting other materials. It seems awfully young to start building houses, imagine that.

Girls on a bike.

Fortunately Finn, whilst the lot of everyone in the camp is very, very difficult and I honestly do not know what I would do if I found myself in such a situation, there are times when people and kids manage to find the time for play, to laugh and have fun, often with little things or big things like this bike.

I’ve finished my work in Auto Mecca now, and to be honest, I’d say the lot of the population is very, very precarious. The rains will come and there will be rivers of mud. Mosquitoes will take their toll and people will slip deeper and deeper in to poverty and possibly despair. We’ve tried to do our best, it’s yet to be seen if it will be any where near enough. Somehow I doubt it myself.

Yup, my boy, we are certainly lucky.

Can’t wait to see you!

Big Kiss xxxxx

Haiti Sitrep 4 Camp Hilton

A young Boy who lives in a camp called Auto Mecca....big smile

Hi Finn,

Just thought I’d drop a line as I come to the end of my time here. I’m going to try to give you an idea of some of the things that have happened, people I’ve met and things I’ve seen. It may be a bit rushed but we’ll see if it works out.

It’s currently late at night, about midnight my time. I’m in our office which is a large white inflatted tent, in a village of large white inflated tents. The sound of a generator drones away in the distance and not so much now, but throughout the day planes and helicopters groan over head. When that’s happening there’s no point in talking, you look up, give that knowing glance and have a chopper stop until it’s possible again to hear the person standing next to you.

It feels it was a while ago that I got this jet to work.

It’s seems a while ago and then a blink of an eye, when we jetted in here from San Domingo. I must admit I’m looking forward to going back there, even if it is just for a day till I fly back to the UK.

The thing is this is such a strange type of emergency. We live in a little bubble in the camp, which we aren’t allowed to leave on foot, only by car and in which we have to return for the curfew at 18.00. It’s surreal and so far from any reality, except our reality, which is either this enclosed world, or the nightmares of the IDP camps.

I’ll give you an idea of those later, but right now lets focus on here.

Camp Hilton rebuild.

The camp is based as I’ve said in what was going to be the Hilton Hotel, now instead of a 5 star hotel it’s beginning to resemble more of a 5 star POW camp, with barbed wire going up and security on entry points. The shell of the building is now being modified to accommodate it’s new role and slowly but surely it’s transformation continues…I hear however that there is some problem finding the actual owners of the site and that the whole thing may have to be moved. But with so much here, we’ll try hard not to think about that!

Cathy in Our Sleeping tent.

As with all camping, the ammenities are all important. We sleep in huge 6 people tents that are lined up in two internal quartiers, that danish camp and the Italian camp. Sleeping is on thin but firm camp beds all surrounded by a tight fitting mosquito net. There’s good internal lighting, lockers and chairs. It’s anything but private..as with any IDP camp, there’s little room for privacy..but something resembling a dormatory. Mostly in our tent, we are in the same team, so we know each other well. However there was one French woman who had her cot next to me. It was three weeks before we ever even spoke to each other..wierd, we just didn’t meet.

Sleeping tents from the outside.

And of course, as with all communla sleeping there’s the usual issue of snoring and farting. We’ve a couple of good n strong snorers and, well you know all about daddys windy pops.

Washing and latrine block

Infront of our sleeping tent we’ve got the shower and latrine blocks. The showers are two large public shower units for boys and girls. Everyone just strips off and gets on with it. I heard of one woman who used her bikini to wash in but that’s viewed as being pretty odd. Normally it’s just off with the kit and lather up. Water is heated by solar, so it’s cold in the AM and warm when you need a cold shower in the middle of the day, but hey ho, that’s fine too.

Office latrines being emptied...time to leave the office!

Unfortunately we’ve got our offices next to another set of latrines which is great if you’ve got to work and have a dodgie tummy, buyt a nightmare when they come to clean them out…then it’s time for a tea break, far, far away…very stinky poo!

Inside our offices.
Other than that though the offices are pretty good. Because I do most of my work in the field, or camps, I’m fortunate not to have to spend too much time in them. During the middle of the day they are roasting even with the fans wizzing and the fridge filled with cold ones…water, cokes and of course beers (apparantly there are rules that you can’t have a beer before 18.00, but after a whole day in a camp, there’s no stopping you from popping open a beer…that one rarely even touches the sides!)

The electricity and inter net access is remarkable…thus I can sit in the office before I’ve even had breakfast and skype you in Fez…how great is that!

Offices at night

However despite generally being out of the tent/office during the day, in the evenings it’s something of a snug come office. We sit and have debriefing meetings and then tap or chat away trying to catch up with the days work or projecting and planning for the future. I’ll be glad to leave these evening sessions alone and get back to reading you stories before bed.

Queueing for food.

Again, as with any large camp site, fooding is all important and both danish and Italian camps have their own kitchen and dinning areas. They are called by these nationalities as it’s Red Cross societies from these countries who cook and organise the food. Thus, unsurprisingly the Italians are pasta monsters and the Danes are highly organised and filled with healthy goodies.

Inside the food hall.

There’s been lots of complaints about the Italian food and you get to see why mama’s boys have such large tummys…past, pasta, pasta…with potatoes and bread! But things are getting better..maybe because I’m about to go home, maybe because I’ve got my dinner ladies. Shame it wasn’t the Thai Red Cross who got that job tho’…what about the Indians..ummm. actually I’m currently craving a Dora Wat, which is Ethiopian food, I think there’s one in Tufnell park…guess where I’m going when I get back for debreif!

Of course it’s really quite difficult being stuck inside the camp from 18.00 onwards and I feel sorry for those who are desk bound here. At least we get to go to the camps. It’s not like any other emergency I’ve done. It’s like being in a bubble far away from the real world. In Moz, we lived in acamp right next to the local population, you were much more part of the population. Here if you don’t spend lots of time in the camps, I’d wonder if you’d really know they existed.

Meeting new people...some crazy Mexicans ..handle with care.

But what there is here is a whole world of people working. Today I had lunch with a woman from Colombia, I work with Camara and Israel from Guinea Conakry and Rwanda, and last night I partied with a load of Mexicans. That is great, but the camp is difficult…couldn’t do too much time here…it’s too far from anywhere.

Cathy and Fi ...a joy to work with.
However I’ve got to say that, as ever on these missions or any mission, you meet some amazing people. It’s been a joy to meet people like Michael, cathy and Fiona. Young eager future international development workers. Committed and eager to make a difference. They want more of being in the field. I remember that so well and I truly hope they get there, it’s a wonderful thing to do. I loved it and clearly still do, but now only with you.

The Local Team.

All the local staff that I work with are amazing too. They’ve all suffered terribly, live in horrid conditions and yet still make it in to try to do what they can everyday. Last night we were all flooded and the camps have turned in to quagmires. Most staff made it in to get to work, but some were literally rebuilding where or what they lived in. I hope that I’ve done something to develop their capacity, certainly I enjoyed working with them.

Anyway my boy, I’m back to see you soon and hopefully by next week I’ll have you in my arms. So just a quick note to say I love and miss you. XXXXX

Haiti Sit Rep 3. Promoting Community Participation and Ownership in an Emergency

Young Kids in Auto Mecca.

This Finn, is a bit of a personal bee in my bonnet and in truth, you may find this less than enthralling, but if any of this sort of public health stuff interests you as much as it does me, well…..

You see I really think that this is not only absolutley possible, if not right from the beginning of an emergency, certainly once populations have settled, but also makes for far better and more accurately targetted program responses.

Latrines draw a crowd….participation should be more than this

This means that if we involve local communities in designing our response as early as possible, they get to gain more control, sooner, our inputs are more relevant to their needs/culture and we begin to rebuild community esteem, control and capacity, at a time when these things have generally been massively compromised, that being the nature of emergencies.

However, more often than not, traditional emergency response is characterised by external decision making that is, of necessary made with a sense of urgency, but that, nonetheless, frequently fails to consider local involvement as anything other than fodder for building, lugging or mainly meanial tasks.

Obviously, the very nature of an emergency, where there has generally been large scale population displacement and a loss of control, often requires urgent decision making. But, personally, even here, once a situation has moved out of the first phase, we should be working to re establish local partnership at least and ownership as an aim. That’s what I think.

La Piste SC Planning Meeting (Mr Haiti’s on the right)

Thus the time I’ve spent trying to develop capacity at la Piste, which although severely compromised by the security and Mr Haiti, could have worked in that camp setting and might still.

Due to “les evenments” (which I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait for the details for) I’ve recently been focussing on Auto Mecca. This is a a totally different environment to work in. A much smaller population (15,000), systems of latrine and bin management that are working relatively well, including teams of cleaners that have been selected due to their proximity to latrines and who really do do their job….the latrines are generally spotless.

AM Latrine cleaner and water collection.

However despite this, we have had relatively little dialogue with the Sanitation Committee, that already exists, and almost none with the communities themselves. Thus we’d previously started handwashing education programmes, without even finding out if this was necessary. Yes, of course in an emergency, there’s a need to reinforce these messages, but my point is, we need to engage more and quicker.

We had designed, and translated in to Creol, a baseline Knowledge Attitudes and Practices (KAP) study. We were ready to go, identified the research team, had a training and trial in place as well as sample size numbers and gridding. But then the Organisation got wind of it and we were told not to do it as it had to be uniform all along the whole organisation.

We’d have had the results now, could have fed back strengths and weaknesses and had our own results from our own initiatives. But the Rc is not a place for initiatives. Too many cheeses in the same place here and thus the route to the top of the stairs and the landings necessary to get you there, stymie anyhting that could be a rapid or innovative response!

Am I moaning? Oops!

Anyway, thus we’ve started in Auto Mecca to develop the basis for a Community Action Plan (CAP) and have already completed a series of Focus Group Discussions (FGD) on malaria, that will inform our emergency preparedness and response to the threat of both malaria and Denge fever, both of which will be rampant from now on and in to the rainy season.

Focus Group Discussions in Auto Mecca.

The FGD should give us an idea of what actions and information we should priotitise, notably re how many nets to distribute. In Mozambique whilst working with SCF and distributing UNICEF nets (both agencies targetting youths and children) we discovered that after a family mosquito net distribution of one net per family, that this was generally taken by the adults, notably the father, and the children generally, but especially older children, slept without nets.

Here we’re pushing for at least two nets to go out per family, but we’ll know more tomorrow when we go through the results of these FGDs.

But back to the CAP. Here we’ve now undertaken another series of mapping exercises, but in Auto Mecca, down to the zone level and within these we’ve asked community members, zone heads of sanitation and the sanitation committee (SC), to identify major riskj factors in their areas.

Today we asked representatives from all these zones, totalling over 40 people, to meet to analyse this information and to begin to prioritise activities that will improve the sanitation and hygiene situation.

Grouping Community Problems.

Thus risk factors were clarified within zonal groups and then presented in a muddle of post it notes, placed chaotically by all groups on a large sheet of paper. At this point the zonal groups joined in to one group and then grouped the post it notes as they saw fit.

Ultimately this lead to 13 different groups of issues relating to anything from security to smelly latrines.

Obviously we needed to prioritise which of these issues we could or should address first and as such we undertook a (pairwise) ranking exercise, in which communities discuss and ultimately vote to select which issues they would prioritise in a series of discussions about pairs of alternatives (i.e. reducing fly/mosquito breeding areas or building more showers). This eventually builds a image of preferences and also requires extensive dialogue and discussions, all of which are noted by local staff and reflected upon as an infoemation capturing exercise.

A Community Ranking Exercise at Auto Mecca..what is your priority.

The results of this exercise will now be shared with our technical team to see what they feel that we can do and this will be fed back to the community.

As such we will have a series of targetted objectives linked to community needs and the reality of their lives and our capacity to respond. The next step is to build a Community Action Plan where by we agree that there are areas of the plan that the local community can respond to themselves (such as increasing the number of times bins are emptied, to reduce overflow and increase vector (flies/rats etc) control.

Within this we’ll need to assess steps to addressing each problem and the risks or opportunities that may exist for each.

In this way we ensure that communities own and participate in the design of their services, we learn more about the communities and thus are able to be more accurate in the program design decisions that we make, and ultimately we develop a happier and healthier emergency response. As I said before, hygiene promotion is about reducing barriers that block healthy decision making or healthy environments as well as promoting the heaqlthiest decisions possible, even or especially in an emergency.

Sit Rep 2 From Haiti. In search of the Happy Crapper….or a lesson in Safer Shitting? Read on…..

Girl from La Piste.

Hi Finn, here's a young girl I met in the camp in La Piste, she's there with some of her family, but others have gone missing, uncles, aunts all of whose whereabouts are unknown, disappeared, like so many thousands, probably buried, unidentified, vanished.

Alright Dad, I hear you saying…what the hell are you doing out there, far away from Peppa Pig, Charlie and Lola and Spider Man…Grrrrrrrr..go on, spill the beans!

Alright son, here’s my best shot…what am I up to?

As I said before I’m out here in Port Au Prince, Haiti with the The British Red Cross and we are currently working in two large camps in Port au Prince as a response to the earthquake on the 12th jan, in two camps, La Piste camp, with 35 – 40,000 and Auto Mecca with15,000 inhabitants.

I’m with a specialised unit, the Mass sanitation Module, who’s role is to go out at an initial phase of an emergency to target sanitation and hygiene promotion for a maximum population size of 20,000, for the initial 3 month phase of an emergency.

This is an image from Auto Mecca.

It's a pretty small camp and well organised. There are nothing like the tensions that exist in La Piste, here. Our work in these camps includes latrine, handwashing and shower facility construction and hygiene promotion in the form of community health education, the promotion of community ownership through linking with local sanitation committees and volunteers.

As part of this, we are continually assessing not only the quantity, but also quality of the services we provide. It is obviously important that there is sufficient number of latrines for population sizes and we aim, tho rarely, if ever achieve, the target of 1 toilet for 20 people. In La Piste it’s currently 1 per 400, and this is at best…but more of that in a much later blog entry.

In addition to the numbers of latrines provided, we try to assess and meet locally acceptable quality standards. For the hygiene promoter this is a crucial part of our role. All health promotion work strives to limit the barriers that prevent good health and hygiene behaviours.

A classic example of a poorly designed latrine, with loads to make you want to crap elsewhere, poorly placed, you've got to walk over shit to have a shit, and when you get there and are squatting down, with your trousers round your ankles, it only takes a gust of wind, and it's for all the world to see...umm, maybe this isn't what the happy crapper is looking for!

With regards to hygiene promotion, we need to ensure that toilet design, location and maintenance act to support, rather than obstruct successful toilet use. In short, we need to make sure that our latrines are the prefered location for any plopportunity

As hygiene promoters, we have several tools at our disposal to ensure or verify this. These include site visits and observational walks to see how well latrines are used and maintained, as well as whether the local populations are using other sites as latrines, defecating in the open (an issue that any festival goer may have experienced), returning to their ruined houses to defecate in existing latrines or defecating in plastic bags. Although this last option does not sound ideal, the use of defecation in plastic bags can be a realistic option in the short term to prevent faecal contamination of the environment….technically we’d call this a case of safer shitting…but let’s not get too technical!

Another useful to tool find out what people really want are Focus Group Discussions. In the urban camps of Port Au Prince, community members complained they did not like the design of the latrines, so I met with the sanitation committee of the camp (who represent the community) to discuss exactly that, latrine design….it’s amazing what people pay you to talk about!

People showering in the open, gets them clean but creates large pools of standing water, a perfect place for mosquitoes to breed and thus spread Malaria and Denge Fever….this really needs working on!

La Piste in particular, is made up of people from a number of populations who come from diverse communities affected by the earthquake. This means we are potentially working with population groups who may have very different original experiences and behaviours in regard to hygiene practices and latrine design, management and maintenance. We need to understand this more fully if we are to have an effective hygiene promotion response, both in terms of “hardware” (toilets, washing stations and malaria nets) as well as the “software” (hygiene behaviour maintenance or alteration).

An image of highly littered area. Without the development of local ownership and management of sites, litter takes over and acts as a breading ground for flies and mosquitoes, with the ensuing epidemics of diahorrhea, malaria, denge fever, typhoid or scabies. The challenge is to meet this together as partners.

We also need to take in to account that the effects of a major disaster and change of normal environment, with vastly reduced resources and support systems, frequently leads, at least at initial stages of an emergency, to highly compromised health behaviours. In effect people don’t necessarily behave as they would…again, something that festival goers may appreciate.

Dramatic increases in the population of these camps means we need to work with them in smaller groups or zones in order to be able to respond effectively. To identify the layout and demographic mix within the camp, we completed a community mapping exercise, in which people developed their own over view of the camp, adding various water and sanitation details, where there are toilets, where they access water, wild shitting sites, dangers like areas of large/fly or mosquito population.

What it also showed us was where there were populations with no latrine or water sources, providing an overview that is difficult to gain otherwise, and all from a community perspective.

Our current aim is to have the sanitation committee identify managers for these zones who will organise latrine attendants and garbage cleaners to improve environmental hygiene and latrine cleaning.

A Community Mapping Exercise at La Piste.

There are multiple challenges, especially in La Piste, where employment opportunities have been hijaked by local gang members, making community participation very difficult, in the face of gang control of resources…but more of that later.

Following the mapping, we began our focus group discussions. We did this with both adults and children, to see if there were specific needs for children, that could lead us to build latrines specific to their needs.

Children brainstorming “good toilets”, as they didn’t write we used a scribe…this is our driver!

Firstly we brainstormed, “what makes a good toilet”? The factors they came back with were many, but included: a seat with a lid, a solid structure made from wood, that it can be locked, enough space, cleanliness, availability of toilet paper and handwashing facilities. Interestingly in looking at reasons why latrines were dirty, adults blambed childrens mal practice and children blambed adults for being irresponsible…..we’ll have to build separate toilets to find out who’s telling the truth.

The La Piste Focus Group visit to wooden latrines. They liked these, but there was still room for improvement. There are currently four different types of latrines in the camp. To get feedback on each of them we visited them individually….and the both children and adults explained their likes and dislikes for each design. This then led to discussions about what they really wanted.

Kids visiting plastic sheeting toilets…..they weren’t impressed!

Women designing their toilets. This told us what we should have known already...learning, we're not the fastest! Following visits to the latrines, brainstorming and the Focus Group discussion, the steering group divided in to groups of men and women and designed their perfect toilet. The designs were then presented and discussed by the whole group. A final design was agreed by all.

Girls designing their latrines.

Pic 10. Scanned Toilet designes. As a result, of this exercise in asking communities what they wanted, the Red Cross has designed a prototype which will be presented to the Sanitation Committee as soon as possible. We hope that through this work we are now able to provide secure, safe and desirable latrines which will not only improve the living conditions in the camp but perhaps restore some dignity for the earthquake affected people in Haiti.

Childrens' Toilet Designs.

Building new latrines. It's difficult to explain how hard it is to gain a consensus re latrine design. One of the challenges we face is that in urban camps, there is a huge shortage of space. Initial pit latrines fill up and can only be emptied once or twice before they collapse.

New Latrine design in progress.

In Haiti there is a tribe called the Baiyaku who are specialists in emptying latrines, which they do in the middle of the night and are highly paid for their troubles. Everyone knows them as specialists in this area and we'll be employing them in camps to do just that.

However in the long term, we needed to include space saving in to our new latrine designs, and as such we planned blocks of four around a central submersable tank that cound be "desludged", making them more user friendly, ergonomic and sustainable, now all we need is to ensure maintainance...now there's a story!

New latrines for happy crappers.