01May 2022 by Esther Shaylor No Comments
New Beginnings – The Origin of the Otter Coven

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…
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22Aug 2018 by Becky 1 Comment
#WEDC41 Part 2: Blunders, Bloopers and Foul-Ups – Time to Talk Failures

#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…
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