Weaving gender and sanitation justice

OVERDUE partners OGDS (Senegal), CFCEM/Genre en Action (DRC), SiMIRALENTA / Genre en Action (Madagascar) and GEPALEF (Ivory Coast) and The Bartlett Development Planning Unit won a UCL Knowledge Exchange Grant to ‘weave gender and sanitation justice’. What did this grant enable? To deepen reflections and understand gendered sanitation experiences and practices through workshops and training activities that supported actionable knowledge amongst local authorities, NGOs, civil society, and small businesses. 

In Bukavu (DRC), the Congolese Women’s Union for Households Balance / Gender in Action (CFCEM/GeA) organised several awareness-raising and advocacy workshops on building and maintaining public toilets, particularly in markets, with a focus on gender. Astrid Mujinga and her team claimed:

“We make budgets but we don’t think about public toilets. I call on the authorities to install public toilets because not doing so is violence against women.” 

The team’s advocacy messages were widely picked up by the local and national press, arguing that:

  • women’s sanitation needs are different to men’s and they currently face severely unhygienic conditions in public toilets;
  • there is a severe shortfall in the quantity and quality of public toilets in Bukavu’s markets, which needs to be urgently addressed; and 
  • local authorities are urged to take a lead in building and maintaining public toilets.

As a partner of the OVERDUE project in Antananarivo (Madagascar), SiMIRALENTA/GeA organised two workshops to create awareness and advocacy tools, and a third one to present the tools developed for just and gender-sensitive sanitation. 

Building on the experiences of the OVERDUE project, members of civil society, service providers, field workers, neighbourhood leaders and others shared their experiences and ideas. 

Participants of SiMIRALENTA’s/GeA’s workshop in Antananarivo

“We have an advocacy video that can also be used for training, and we have developed numerous awareness-raising tools (flyers, posters and T-shirts). We are building collaborations with the Commune Urbaine d’Antananarivo, on the one hand, and with networks involved in the promotion of gender and/or water, sanitation, and hygiene, on the other hand.”

explain Jeannine Ramarokoto and Mina Rakotoarindrasata from the SiMIRALENTA / GeA team.

In Saint-Louis, Senegal, the Observatory for Gender and Development (OGDS) worked with creative methodologies to raise awareness of women’s sanitation work. 

They prepared a survey, videos and participatory theatre to challenge the municipality and state structures on the physical, mental and economic burden of women’s invisible work in domestic sanitation and on the gender stereotypes that relegate them to this role. 

Moreover, OGDS organised a training workshop to manufacture hygiene products (soaps and detergents), and generate collective reflections on the economic opportunities of sanitation for women. 

Soap produced by OGDS workshop participants

Finally, GEPALEF, OVERDUE partner in Ivory Coast, organised two workshops in Abidjan to share knowledge, experiences and awareness. They looked at gender inequalities in sanitation, notably the taboos but also the violence that constrain women’s access to toilets, in the domestic and public space. 

Invitation by GEPALEF to share toilet experiences

Furthermore, they discussed gender-related constraints and economic opportunities for women in the management of recycling and recovery of faeces and toilet waste. 

“We want women to be involved in the management of public toilets to earn money. The transformation of faeces into fertilizer or biogas, these are businesses that we can create with the women to enable them to have money”

say Angèle Koué and her team.

All the organisations are now jointly working to consolidate the learnings and outputs generated through this Knowledge Exchange to produce training material supporting just and gender-sensitive sanitation. 

Watch this space for more in-depth reflections and analyses of these fantastic activities!

You can read the press coverage (in French) here:

https://kivutimes.com/bukavu-la-coordonnatrice-de-lorganisation-cfcem-ga-appelle-le-gouvernement-congolais-a-installer-les-toilettes-publiques/

http://mamaradio.info/sud-kivu-lassociation-cfcem-plaide-pour-la-construction-des-toilettes-publiques-qui-tiennent-compte-de-lhygienique-des-femmes/

https://acpcongo.com/index.php/2022/08/05/sud-kivu-plaidoyer-pour-la-construction-des-toilettes-publiques-dans-la-ville-de-bukavu/

https://laprunellerdc.info/bukavu-pas-de-toilettes-publiques-assainies-et-respectant-le-genre/

https://www.linfodrome.com/societe/79770-un-atelier-d-echanges-sur-les-inegalites-de-genres-et-la-valorisation-des-matieres-fecales-ouvert

https://echosdumonde.net/index.php/2022/08/11/recyclage-des-matieres-fecales-long-gepalef-souhaite-limplication-des-femmes-dans-leconomie-circulaire/