Approaches to an engineering practice which is socially just

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EAP’s panel within the panel on water and sanitation

1. Jonathan Parkinson, International Water Association, spoke of how sewerage are conceptualised in cities and how engineers interest in this appear to diminish the closer one gets to the households. A second issue is that waste water is rarely treated before discharge. Conclusion, one needs to focus on the sanitation around houses. On a positive note, there are some examples of initiatives which try to address this (Orangi Pilot Project in Pakistan), but they are limited.

2. Meena Varma, Dalit Solidarity Network, spoke of the horrendous situation of the dalits situation especially in the South East Asia. Eg. Forced to manually scavenge human excrement from public and private dry latrines despite legislation outlawing the practice, but even were this is enforced dalit men are still lowered into open drains to unblock blocks without any protective gear. Worst job in the world – cleaning up other people’s shit!

3. David Satterthwaite, International Institute for Environment and Development, spoke of the problems of help organisations reluctance to help (in a good way) in urban areas lacking sewers. There are examples of local initiatives such as the Organgi project which have been successful both in terms of implementation, results, and cost effectiveness (e.g. no or little need for external funding). Conclusions, talk to the people living without sanitation, draw on local knowledge and expertise and then integrate these local systems into the bigger urban systems.

4. Emanuele Lobina, PSIRU, spoke of an alternative scheme of addressing sanitation issues in developing countries. Historically public funding and services have provided sanitation in developed countries, e.g. no cost recovery. In contrast this is currently not done very much when doing project in developing countries which often rely on private actors and cost recovery. Also, important to focus efforts in the Sub-Saharan region as areas as India have more recourses to solve the problem by themselves.

5. John Kandulu, WaterAid, spoke of the organisation Wateraid’s efforts to improve access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world’s poorest communities. Get communities and households to get to the first step of improving their sanitation, i.e. no faeces on the surface. WaterAid works with locals to find solutions that are suitable for the locals. Are solutions like these replicable elsewhere etc.

The rest of the panel

Jaime Arturo Bastidas Legarda spoke of the situation of displaced victims due to the armed conflict (between armed groups outside the law) in Colombia and his research is relation to this.

Andrew Fox spoke of a proposed project (Promoting social equity for disabled people in Gambia) he, Ebou Faye Njie others would like to carry out in Gambia addressing equity for the disabled and how the engineering community has and can interact/promote this issue and what role engineers can play in this project. The project is being developed by people in Gambia and was initiated by Ebou Faye Njie. At this time the project team is being put together.

Darko Matovic spoke of his role in the Waste for Life project coordinated by Caroline Baillie and Eric Feinblatt. Especially he expanded on some of the technical aspects of the hot press at the centre of the project and sent around some of valets made out of which have been made as prototype products.

Approaches to an engineering practice which is socially just

Format: Panel discussion followed by action planning

  1. Panelist: Sue Cavill
    Affiliation: Engineers Against Poverty
    Title: Toilets and sanitation
    Abstract: Toilets are fundamental to a peaceful and just society. Ghandi said that sanitation is one of the important things which reformers must tackle, more so than independence. Yet in 2006 it was estimated that 2.5 billion people did not have basic sanitation.  Why isn’t there greater accountability to these people and faster progress to overcome such highly unequal access to sanitation? The panel will discuss: how toilets contribute to social justice and peace; the scale of the problem; ways to achieve sanitation for all; the accountability of engineers, national governments and the international communities to the people they serve.
  2. Panelist: Jaime Arturo Bastidas Legarda

Affiliation: Universidad de los Andes

Title: “The creation of a National System of Attendance the Victims of Organized Armed Groups operating Outside the Law”

The Colombian conflict is the oldest conflict in Latin America and has caused more than 2 million internal displacements. The goal of the research was to determine the actual assistance that victims received and make a contribution to this assistance. This was possible using an Information System tool like Soft System Methodology. The key actors were members of: social organizations, institutions, political parties.

The proposal of this research is that the assistance of victims should be integrated into a national system victim of organized armed groups operating outside the law and two programs that could complement it. The first program would be an Integrated Care Center: this could offer victim care in cities with greater population densities. The Second would be an information system that would make access to all programs easier for victim’s witch would be offered

  1. Panelist: Darko Matovic
    Affiliation: Queens University
    Title: Composites plastics production by locally made machines: a hotpress challenge
    Abstract: Efforts to establish composite plastics production by local cooperatives are underway at several communities across the globe: in Argentina, Lesotho, Lebanon, India. The raw materials for such production are aboundant everywhere: waste plastics and natural fibers (either recycled cardboard, paper, agricultural residues or other plant material, e.g. agave fibers). A common challenge in establishing sustainable production is in access to production machines. A key piece of equipment neccessary for board-type products is a hotpress, capable of melting the composite under pressure, sufficient to bond plastics and fiber into a homogenized, mechanically resilient material. Such devices, commonly available in industrial facilities, are beyond the reach of the communities that subsist on waste recovery, the ones to benefit most from this value-added production. A Kingston hotpress, designed at Queen’s University, seems to fill that need successfully. This high-performance piece of equipment can be made at almost any locality around the world that has access to common structural steel profiles (“C” channels, “I” beams, round and square tubings) and simple welding, drilling and cutting tools. It can be built at cost of $1000 to $2000. The challenges of designing a rigid structure capable of supplying up to 200 tonnes of pressing force over the 60×60 cm work area, yet operated manually, are discussed. Successful tests on the prototype at Queen’s are followed by similar machines built in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Rhode Island (US), Maseru (Lesotho) and Perth (Australia).
  2. Panelists: Ebou Faye Njie and Andrew Fox
    Affiliation: Concern Universal/University of Plymouth
    Title: Promoting social equity for disabled people in Gambia
    Abstract: The Gambia is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa and also one of the poorest. It has a largely rural society with much of its population engaged in subsistence farming. Within the country there is very little welfare or support for people with disabilities, but there has been notable improvements within the legal and institutional framework of the country in recent years. This paper will chart the progress made in promoting social equity for disabled people in Gambia and highlight some of the most significant barriers that still remain to be overcome. The paper also provides an analysis of the extent to which the engineering community in Gambia has been involved in the process of changing attitudes towards the disabled. It concludes by developing a set of guidelines that the engineering community could use to extend and enhance the achievements made to-date in promoting equity for the disabled population of Gambia.