Toward A Proper and Safe WASH In Bintan, Indonesia

Poor sanitary conditions can cause disease impacts on public health in Indonesia. Diseases such as diarrhea, typhus, polio, and intestinal worms are a real impact of these diseases caused by poor sanitation. Through this impact, the three village governments in Busung Village, Kuala Sempang, and Pengujan in Bintan District realized the need to increase awareness of the importance of having proper and safe sanitation facilities for their community members.

Water Stewardship Indonesia (WSI), in collaboration with Global Water Partnership Southeast Asia (GWP-SEA), Safe Water Gardens in December 2022 - January 2023 through SWG Program, the 3 Village Governments in Bintan Regency are committed to achieving access to proper and safe sanitation in their areas. On the 19th of January 2023, the activity began with a socialization of the SWG Program, attended by representatives from the Heads of RT, RW, traditional religious leaders, and village volunteers about the importance of access to proper and safe sanitation, how to understand the essential information on WASH access of each household in the village and how the Safe Water Garden (SWG) program can help to improve the WASH access of the community.

The socialization was followed up with e-Survey training for village volunteers who acted as enumerators to obtain initial data on water and sanitation conditions at the household level as a basis for determining the location of the SWG Project pilot.

In this survey activity, in addition to obtaining data related to water and sanitation in the village, the Village Government also receives other positive benefits from this data, mainly as a basis for decision-making in planning and allocating village budget funds for the WASH program, stunting, community welfare improvement, tourism, and so forth.

The SWG program consists of 6 (six) stages:

1. Socialization on the SWG program and building Village Government Commitment to Achieve Adequate and Safe Sanitation.
2. Training and survey of WASH Conditions at the household level electronically.
3. Pilot households identification for project locations. The households are determined based on data analysis from the result of the survey.
4. On-the-job-training for making proper and safe SWG sanitation facilities. This on-the-job training is an approach used to implement the SWG program to ensure that the pilot village can be the knowledge center of the SWG program that aims to be replicated in other villages in the Bintan district and Indonesia.
5. Scaling-up SWG Program by the Village Government. Replication of the SWG program will be conducted independently by the Village Government in village areas where sanitation conditions are inadequate and unsafe based on previous survey data.
6. Monitoring and Evaluation.

The progress of the SWG program is currently at the stage of determining the households of the pilot project in these three villages. Once decided, the “On the Job Training (OJT)” for SWG physical or infrastructure implementation can be started together with the community.

For further information regarding this activity, please contact Fany Wedahuditama: fany@ws-indonesia.org.

This public-private project is made possible through a grant from the Tauw Foundation, coupled with contributions from Safe Water Gardens (SWG), Global Water Partnership Southeast Asia (GWP-SEA) and the public Desa funds.