Blog – Water.Women.World.

01May 2022 by Esther Shaylor No Comments

New Beginnings – The Origin of the Otter Coven

Water, Women

In 2017 I (Esther) travelled from the UK to India for an important work event: I was going to talk shit for five days at the FSM4 Conference. It was a gathering of WASHies (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene enthusiasts) like no other; I caught up with old friends and past colleagues, and met some new people. Little did I know then that two of those people would go on to be my co-founders of the Otter Coven. Our favourite emoji pin badge attending the FSM4 conference in Chennai, India I met Becky Sindall and Dani Barrington at the conference, and we instantly hit it off discussing conference classics like the long walk to the toilets and the tasty food at the breaks. We also chatted about the interesting work happening…

14Nov 2018 by Becky No Comments

#WEDC41 Part 5: Be the change you want to see

Water, Women

In July, I spent two weeks in Kenya at the WEDC conference in Nakuru and visiting sanitation companies, Sanergy and Sanivation, and the newly-established sanitation research group at Meru University of Science and Technology. This is the last in a five-part series of blogs about that conference and those visits. You can see the earlier posts about (the lack of) government support for container-based sanitation businesses here, about WASH failures here, about behaviour change toolkits here, and about systems mapping and the role of religion here. Sometimes you meet a person who you know is going to make big changes to the world around them. Joy Riungu, the Dean of Engineering and Architecture at Meru University of Science and Technology (MUST) is one of those people. Meru, like any other…

19Sep 2018 by Becky No Comments

#WEDC41 Part 4: The wider system and the role of religion

Water, World

In July, I spent two weeks in Kenya at the WEDC conference in Nakuru and visiting sanitation companies, Sanergy and Sanivation, and the newly-established sanitation research group at Meru University of Science and Technology. This is the fourth in a five-part series of blogs about that conference and those visits. You can see the earlier posts about (the lack of) government support for container-based sanitation businesses here, about WASH failures here and about behaviour change toolkits here. Nothing exists in a bubble. Sanitation is no exception. Sanitation is a social issue and any sanitation process will be affected by the communities, businesses, governments, NGOs and a host of other stakeholders that interact with them. Understanding that sanitation is part of a wider system and how that system works is a…

05Sep 2018 by Becky No Comments

#WEDC41 Part 3: Behaviour change tools to save lives

Water

In July, I spent two weeks in Kenya at the WEDC conference in Nakuru and visiting sanitation companies, Sanergy and Sanivation, and the newly-established sanitation research group at Meru University of Science and Technology. This is the third in a five-part series of blogs about that conference and those visits. You can see the earlier posts about (the lack of) government support for container-based sanitation businesses here and about WASH failures here. Wash’EM is a new tool to support the design of handwashing programmes in emergency settings. The Wash’EM team presented the tool at the WEDC conference in Nakuru, allowing attendees to try it out on a demonstration scenario, to understand the aims of the project and identify ways that it could be made easier to use. The tool provides…

22Aug 2018 by Becky 1 Comment

#WEDC41 Part 2: Blunders, Bloopers and Foul-Ups – Time to Talk Failures

Water

In July, I spent two weeks in Kenya at the WEDC conference in Nakuru and visiting sanitation companies, Sanergy and Sanivation, and the newly-established sanitation research group at Meru University of Science and Technology. This is the second in a five-part series of blogs about that conference and those visits. You can see the first post about the need for government support for sanitation businesses here. Shit happens. But maybe it shouldn’t always happen... At WEDC41, over 80 people took part as the audience of the very first edition of Blunders, Bloopers and Foul-Ups: A WASH Game Show. Complete with theme music, a host in a sparkly jacket (me!) and buzzer sounds, the aim of the game was for the two teams (and the audience) to identify which of the…

08Aug 2018 by Becky 4 Comments

#WEDC41 Part 1: The challenges of the world’s number 2 business

Water, World

In July, I spent two weeks in Kenya at the 41st WEDC conference in Nakuru and visiting sanitation companies, Sanergy and Sanivation, and the newly-established sanitation research group at Meru University of Science and Technology. This is the first in a five-part series of blogs about that conference and those visits. Sanivation and Sanergy are two companies making changes to the state of sanitation in Kenya. The two companies provide container-based sanitation services to residents in Nairobi and in Naivasha and are using the collected poop to make a product that they can sell. Sanergy uses a combination of black soldier fly larvae processing and composting to create animal feed and fertiliser. Sanivation dries faecal material to produce briquettes that replace the charcoal used for cooking across Kenya. Despite treating…

20Jun 2018 by Becky 1 Comment

Why I’m not the right person to solve your problems: an engineer in sanitation

Water

I sat in a meeting recently about sanitation prototypes that are being tested in the "real world" - the informal settlements and rural households that they have been designed for, rather than the labs where they were created. As with any early stage testing, the prototypes have problems and it was these problems and the potential solutions that were under discussion at the meeting. While listening to these challenges, it hit me. As an engineer, I am not the right person to solve sanitation problems. Of course, there are some technical problems with the prototypes - materials that foul in a different way than expected causing downstream problems, control sequences that need adapting to deal with different circumstances - but it is the non-technical challenges that really interested me. Some…

16Jan 2018 by Becky No Comments

Start 2018 right: pledge to actively support diversity!

Women, World

Following the #WDP36 list of women in drowning prevention, I posted on how to be an ally to under-represented groups. Soon after that, I was approached by SOBRASA, a Brazilian drowning prevention organisation,. They wanted to encourage individuals and organisations to take the five steps towards diversity that were listed in that blog. Together we came up with the graphic below and already, drowning prevention organisations across the world have pledged to actively support diversity. If you want to help your organisation grow by becoming more diverse and inclusive, pledge here. [emailpetition id="1"]

14Dec 2017 by Becky 2 Comments

How to be an ally

Women, World

Following on from the publication of the #WDP36 list two weeks ago, some men have asked what they can do to support women around them and increase the representation of women in leadership positions. Old rich white men dominate drowning prevention. Young black people dominate the drowning fatalities. If the drowning prevention community wants to achieve a significant global reduction in drowning, then the community needs to be more inclusive and more diverse. It needs to listen to voices from different countries, diverse backgrounds, different genders, and different experiences. The fact that people are asking how they can support that is testament to their commitment to improve diversity. The question is what that commitment should look like. Let’s start by defining the problem: Think about the positions that you hold…

30Nov 2017 by Becky 6 Comments

#WDP36 – More than a popularity contest…

Water, Women

In 2015, the first Women in Global Health list was published. It was a list of 100 leading women working in global health, and it has since grown to include more notable women in the field. It was started by Ilona Kickbusch, Director of the Global Health Programme at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. She was bored of attending conferences and panels where she was the only woman speaker. She decided that she needed to showcase women in global health and asked her Twitter followers to nominate women to the list. The idea caught on and the list grew. At the World Conference on Drowning Prevention 2017 in Vancouver, Canada, a similar Twitter campaign was run using #WDP36 to find a list of 36 leading…