Natalia Dejean
ORMAX Safe Water and Sanitation for All, Republic of Moldova

"I was born in Moldova. For me it is very important to see the people. Like anyone, these people don’t like to be told what they should do, what is good for them. If you don’t speak the language you don’t see the sincerity. Something has changed in people’s lives here [since ORMAX began the project in Moldova]. We are not building roads or houses. But we empowered people to change their own lives by educating them. They have become the drivers of the work and that is very positive.

We ask people if their perceptions of waste management and water have changed but they give us what they think are the correct answers. Not necessarily their own opinions. But what they say is unimportant. What they do is important.

Every day they call to tell us they have constructed a new well [using the techniques ORMAX has taught] and they want us to test it. They have cleaned a well site, they want us to test it. Their maps are marked so everyone can see the nearest location of a clean well and they use these wells for drinking and cooking. It’s a good change. And their continued behaviour is improving water quality.

Water quality was very bad mainly because of human activities. The nitrate levels were very high, around 250 to 500 mg per litre. This is important because the nitrate level indicates the presence of other pollutants. People’s homes were just 10 metres from the water source, so their pit latrines were too. There was a strong concentration of urine in the water, as well as animal waste.

In 2011 we constructed our first waterless toilet for a school. By 2013 we had installed 10 waterless toilets in households. Waterless toilets are not appropriate for small children [because disrupting the balance by incorrect use would render the toilet useless] so we created a small wetland for processing the water at a kindergarten toilet. Today people contact us telling us they are interested in building waterless toilets themselves. They want the parts and ask us to help with the expertise.

The teachers at the schools are amazed by the reduction in absences due to sickness. They have been halved since the new toilet was installed. The children say it is better. It’s not just hygiene, the old toilet was about 300 metres outside the school gates. The winter in Moldova is very long, frosty, cold, and rainy. It’s better for them to have a toilet on site for many reasons.

In rural Moldova people didn’t have sanitation but they had mobile phones and good bus links. We sometimes visited five villages in three hours by car. ORMAX headquarters is only 25 km from the furthest village that was part of our project. You could do it by bicycle. It was easy to communicate with the villages, people called us every day with questions.

Moldova is famous for its fruit and vegetables. We educated the farmers about the composting properties of human and animal waste, but they already knew. Their parents used these same sustainable techniques, then people forgot. In the Soviet Union there was ready access to cheap chemical solutions, so people used those.

When the education began, people remembered their parents using the same techniques. They remembered their parents’ generation was healthier. The education helped illustrate that it was the unsustainable fertilizer practices that was to blame.

The chambers for the sewage waste in the waterless toilets are large and only two years old in many cases. The waste may not yet be mature enough to use for compost. But the farmers already collect the urine from the school and use it to help the fruit trees grow. Apples and apricots. These are old ways, now remembered.

Three years ago we began to focus more on educating children in the schools. The next generation of Moldovans will be much more concerned about the environment. They are more sensitive towards these issues than their parents and they become great messengers in their own communities. It’s much harder to touch the parents and grandparents.

But for the children, it’s not about how they will be in the future, the change is already evident! They don’t just copy their parents, they do it their way. Younger people are now beginning to see business opportunities in developing things that are good for people’s health. This is all positive."

ORMAX Safe Water and Sanitation for All initiative was awarded with the Category 2 'Best participatory, communication, awareness-raising and education practices' Water for Life’ UN-Water Best Practices Award in 2013.

>> More information about Safe Water and Sanitation for All in the Republic of Moldova