The DILG-GTZ Water & Sanitation Program conducted for the first time training on ecological sanitation for local NGO’s from the Visayas and Mindanao . The 3-day training took place in Dumaguete and Bayawan City , Oriental Negros from April 24 to 26, 2007.

The idea of a special training for NGO’s was prompted by the requests of several local NGO’s that had attended short presentations on ecosan and planned to integrate ecological sanitation into their programs.

These requests were timely because the DILG-GTZ Water & Sanitation Program’s strategy aims at promoting ecological sanitation not only to its partners but to all stakeholders. NGO’s play an important role in planning and implementing water and sanitation projects.

The 35 participants came from Oriental Negros, Bohol , Cebu and Misamis Oriental. The Water Program had invited experts and resource speakers from various Philippine organisations that have implemented projects and have carried out research on ecological sanitation, namely PUVeP (Peri-Urban Vegetable Project), Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro; CAPS (Centre for Advanced Philippine Studies), Manila and PCWS (Philippine Centre for Water and Sanitation), Manila. For these organisations the training served also as venue for networking and information sharing.

The training started with an introduction of sanitation and it’s relevance for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) followed by the ecosan philosophy. Subjects like social and health aspects, technology options for the collection and treatment of faeces as well as their safe reuse were presented by various speakers. Special importance was given to the planning and implementation process of ecosan projects to ensure a participatory process that involves the users of the facilities right from the start. The general speeches were complemented by presentations of different case studies from Luzon , the Visayas and Mindanao . The participants had the opportunity to deepen their newly acquired knowledge in working group sessions on technology options, social preparation and planning and implementation processes.

The third day of the training was dedicated to a handson ecosan experience and included field visits to the constructed wetland for domestic waste water treatment and urine diversion dehydration toilets (UDDT’s) in Bayawan City .

After a couple of presentations on soil fertility and reuse applications the participants had the chance to exercise the reuse o f ecosan products from a UDDT in Bayawan.

Despite the tight program and the blazing heat during the hands-on exercise the participants enjoyed the training and gave a positive feedback to the organizers. A week after the training the NGO Local Empowerment Foundation from Misamis Oriental had already started with the construction of UDDT’s. Here are some voices of participants regarding the exercise on reuse and ecosan in general: “My mind-set was totally changed from the traditional fear of human wastes (because it has very foul odor and potential for carrying diseases) to being impressed by its usefulness to agriculture.”

“At first, I am thinking of using urine because I am not comfortable with the decomposed faeces but in actual, it is nice to use the decomposed faeces because it is just like a soil. It is not difficult to invite and convince farmers to use faeces compared to urine since the smell was still present and need more dilution.”

“From here, we learned more on ecological protection. ECOSAN is very important especially the farmers who has difficulties in buying fertilizers. We are collecting cow’s and carabao’s manure but we threw away our wastes (faeces and urine). So it would be good that we will utilize our resources. We will maximize these wastes. So we have to apply re-using human wastes.

In one way or another, it can contribute to lessen the poverty problem.”

And one participant summarized ecological sanitation rather articulate:

“Do not poop if you do not close the loop!!!”

Ulrike Lipkow
GTZ Water Program
Provincial Planning and Development Office Capitol Area
6200 Dumaguete City , Oriental Negros
Phone: +63 (0) 35 422 1421
Fax: +63 (0) 35 422 1421
E-mail: ulrike.lipkow@gtz.de