Completed Projects
Project Aims
Project aims to provide every villager in Bhattedande with the ability to dispose of waste safely by:
⁃ construction and installation of toilets for approximately 70 households
⁃ using septic or biogas systems, as appropriate
⁃ using local expertise, labour and materials in every stage of the project
⁃ improving access to safe drinking water
⁃ ongoing assessment and maintenance of the waste systems
⁃ education on sanitation and hygiene
Access to drinking water
Preliminary testing of water quality done in 2007 showed the water to be of poor quality (with consistent evidence that the water contained faecal coliforms) and in limited supply, particularly towards the end of the dry season. The village is working with the municipality to improve the water supply.
Project partners
Rotary Club of Dee Why Warringah: Sandra Meihubers, Project Coordinator
Healthabitat Pty Ltd: Paul Pholeros, Project Coordinator
Community Health Development Society (CHDS) Nepal: Bishnu Shrestha, Project Manager
Sree Tamang Village Environment Development Committee (STVEDC), Bhattedande Village: Prem Lama, Committee Chairman
Village Life
For the people of Bhattedande, a village perched on a steep hillside in Kavre district in the upper Kathmandu valley with spectacular uninterrupted views of the Himalayas, they are poor in a country that is rich. The villagers are of the Tamang ethnic group, practising Buddhism in a principally Hindu country. Whilst they are not far from a major administrative centre, they are marginalised, as an “Indigenous” ethnic group, and are often overlooked by local development programs.
Their daily lives are taken up with farming for a largely subsistence existence. Women of much of the hard farm labour. Some of the younger men join the swelling ranks of workforce sent to countries such as Qatar, Dubai and Iraq where they are used as cheap labour, but they somehow manage to send small amounts of money home to their families.
Village children attend a local school and education of the children is strongly supported by the local community, so that future generations can move beyond the high levels of illiteracy in their parents, and have a chance to create better opportunities for themselves. The lifestyle is communal with recognised family connections and responsibilities.
Houses do not have the luxury of bathrooms or taps, water is accessed at communal tap points, and water shortages are common. In 2006 there were five toilets in the 70 houses in the village. Villagers were forced to go to the fields to use a “toilet”: a hole in the ground with plastic sheeting providing makeshift shelter and limited privacy. Old people and young children often didn’t make it to fields. Cooking was done indoors on open and smokey fires in unventilated rooms. The diet is largely rice and vegetable based, with occasional supplementation of meat usually at festival times, or when families raise some money.
However the villagers demonstrate an incredible generosity of spirit and welcome, touching the hearts and minds of those who visit them and who take the time to experience some of their village life.
Staging the development
Important to the success of the Bhattendande Village Sanitation Project has been the development of the project in successive stages, ie starting with two toilets, then building 10 per stage, with two stages per year as the capacity of the local teams determined ten toilets could be built per stages, including site planning, engineer approval and all building works.
Before every stage is planned the budget is calculated by CHDS with itemised labour, materials, supervision and site costs and submitted to the Australian team for approval. At the end of every stage the village hosts a ‘key handover ceremony’ where members from the Australian team travel to Nepal to participate in the official handing over of the keys to the newly finished toilets, together with the members of CHDS and STVEDC.
Some of the lessons learned and benefits of the staging are:
⁃ residents understanding the benefits of biogas in a working kitchen after the two trial toilets were built, which in turn alleviated the possible concerns about poor smell and hygiene
⁃ not building during the wet season and the preceding weeks; therefore construction occurs either side of the wet season in June/July
⁃ continuing improvement in construction and management standards through careful inspection of completed works at every stage
⁃ overcoming local misunderstandings about how a septic system actually functions - that is, the tank is not a big “bucket” that requires emptying when full, but that the constant outflow of treated effluent is actually a necessary part of the ongoing process of waste breakdown in the septic system.
Most importantly, villagers realised the project team was delivering on a promise. The villagers had spent many years living on broken promises of improved sanitation.
Labour intensive work
Building in Bhattedande comes with many challenges including restrictions in transport, site access and tools. Heavy machinery is expensive and cannot access most of the site.
One of the major challenges is getting the building materials to the sites. Materials include brick, rock and cement, all of which have to be carried into the village. There are no roads through Bhattedande, therefore materials are delivered at the top of the village, where the access road ends, and are carried into the village in baskets on the backs of labourers, often women.
When construction of the toilet building and its waste system is complete, the most labour intensive parts of the building are hidden underground: the biogas digesters and septic tanks involve a lot of earth moving and construction work which is all done by hand.
Measures of success
A marriage between Ashish and Sarjana
Messages from the villagers
Testimonial from the Patriach of Bhattedande village translated by Bishnu Shrestha
Donors
This project relies on the generosity of donors to make this work possible. The support of families, student groups, organisations and individuals directly benefits the families who receive a toilet.
Donor were matched with recipient families and each donor received a report at the completion of each stage with a photograph of the family and the official key handover.