Adopted Approach and Methodology

Approach adopted

COSI worked with 9 partner organizations and 9 schools in the Batticlaoa district for this dissemination project. The administrative procedures were much difficult with schools as they come under ministry of Education. But the dissemination process was result oriented & more promising. SODIS was integrated in ongoing water, sanitation and hygiene projects under the partner organizations.

The field activities of SODIS were started only in January 2003 because of unexpected rainy weather in the latter part of 2002. Each organization initiated the field activities by introducing SODIS in one village first and moving to other villages by slowly. The village where the SODIS was introduced first was taken as a model for other communities & also to measure the efficiency & effectiveness of the household level use of SODIS. Promotional programmes to make the awareness among influential groups were organized at provincial level.

A continues monitoring of efficiency & field level acceptance of SODIS were measured by reviewing progress reports and conducting field visits. Set indicators were used to measure the effectiveness of the use of SODIS at field level.

Methodology

1. Selection of Partner Organizations

76 communities were selected under 34 partner organizations in the project preparation phase. The elimination of the unfeasible organizations carried out next, in order to select the best 10 organizations to involve with the initial activities of SODIS.

9 organizations & 9 schools were selected for SODIS project from the following provinces,

North Western 11 communities with 3 organizations

Eastern 4 communities with 2 organization and 9 schools

Uva 8 communities with 2 organizations

North Central 2 communities with 1 organization

Southern 3 communities with 1 organization

Altogether, 28 communities with 9 organizations and 9 schools from the Batocaloa district, Eastern province.

2. Identifying the priority sites/Communities

The recommendation and the past information about the water related diseases in particular villages were considered when choosing priority sites (2-4) for initial activities. In addition, water tests were carried out to supply the decision of selection. Since, the organizations planed to initiate SODIS activities with few effective families first, water test result was taken as a critical factor (Annex A). Several indicators other than the contaminated water in the source were considered when deciding on beneficiaries. They are,

1) Villagers had experienced water related diseases in a particular time of the year

2) Epidemic water diseases had occur in the vicinity before

3) Contamination of water while handling is likely

4) Families fetch water from different sources at different times of the year

3. Training & Demonstration

2 staff members from each organization were selected for the initial training for SODIS. SODIS technology, dissemination strategies, training the community level staff were discussed & taught in the training.

SODIS flipchart posters, SODIS handbook, Flyers, SODIS poster, Video on “SODIS”, Presentation slides and SODIS manual were prepared for the SODIS training & promotional activities at field level. SODIS website and the literature sent by SANDEC were used in selecting the illustrations and the textual details for above material. The illustrations were re-done to go along with local context. The text was written either in Sinhala or Tamil, as the official language of almost all the field level staff is their mother tongue.

As highlighted in the mid-term review meeting, organizing provincial level promotional activities to make the state level officials aware on SODIS was carried out in all the site areas. This was organized in the second half of the first year (after May 2003) so that we could involve SODIS users to talk about the benefits of using it & be a live example to the participants. It helped to convince the officials & the prospective users about SODIS more than expected.

4. Monitoring and Follow up support

COSI assists the partner organizations in supplying bottles, water quality tests, advisory services on technicalities and providing training, training/promotional materials in particular & when & where necessary.

Field visits, interviews and discussions with management, field staff and beneficiaries were carried out initially to monitor the progress. Further, a proper plan was developed for monitoring after the interactive discussion held in the mid–term review meeting in February 2003.

COSI obtained monthly reviews & measure the efficiency of the organization & the fieldwork according to the statistics. In addition, several indicators were used to measure the effectiveness of the SODIS field activities. The effectiveness was measured using random samples in each site once (Annex B)& will be measured (probably with additional indicators) before the end of this year again.

5. Bottle Supply Scheme

The initial plans of bottle supply system were reviewed in many places where the supply was not up to satisfactory. 2 two-liter bottles per person were the considered minimum consummating capacity for the initial introductory programmes. The number of bottles needed depended on the population of the community considered. The improvements of the bottle supply is given in the table 01.

Introducing both glass bottles & PET bottles together was successful especially in several sites. This worked out where finding PET bottles was difficult. In some places people found using glass bottles easier since they can use those bottles for a longer time than PET bottles (durability)

Different communities even under same organization implement different bottle supply methods. Most of the organizations mainly depended on the hotels, restaurants etc for used mineral water bottles & the rest was bought for an affordable price, less than one rupee per 1.5 Ltr. Bottle. Buying bottles was arranged with the close assistance of the organization in the initial 6-month period & a suitable person/group was/were identified in the community to carry out the task afterwards.