Water & Sanitation Blogs

In mid-March, I, Taiga, was sent to Sawla (in Oyda District, south Ethiopia) where HOPE is currently implementing a project. This was my first time to set foot not only in Ethiopia but on the African continent as well. When I arrived at the airport, the first words I muttered were, "I'm in trouble."

Our projects in Cambodia began in 2002 with the building of a well near the center of Pursat Province, where HOPE Cambodia’s office is located. The first well was just a dot on a map, but with successive projects, it became a line, and now our wells cover a large area providing clean water to more than 10,000 people.

There are about 2 billion people in the world who do not have access to latrines of which many practice open defecation in the outdoors. As a result, the public’s sanitation suffers and children with weak immune systems often fall victim to diarrhea.

In the middle of September, we held a 3-day training workshop to assist in the creation of Cluster Level Associations (or CLAs) for our SHG groups from all four wards of our project sites. About 50 participants attended including the newly elected CLA representatives and our own Community Field Educators from each ward, together with a few government officials from the wards, the Oyda District and from Gofa Zone.

In August 2022, when our HOPE Cambodian staff visited Oeun, she was hard at work in the fields under the scorching sun as usual. Oeun met with HOPE about 20 years ago.

The words "sanitation" and "hygiene" are not something we think about often, although these habits are ingrained in our everyday lives and perhaps practice slightly more consciously these days due to the pandemic.

TOTO Ltd. has been a pioneer of Japanese hygiene technologies since the early 1900s. They have greatly contributed to the public health of Japan, through the development of toilets, and they currently have a TOTO Water Environment Fund. This month, we spoke with Mr. Kawamura from TOTO about the fund.

Every year in Ethiopia, the internet gets shut down a few times which disrupts our email communication with our HOPE Ethiopia staff. Many people may think that this is about information control.

World Toilet Day may seem strange to many, but it is an officially designated UN International Observance Day on November 19th that celebrates the importance of toilets by raising awareness on the broader global sanitation crisis.