GUDPELA SINDAUN
A scalable community led WASH initiative.
Because the 85% of PNG without access to safe toilets can’t wait any longer.
The Challenge
In PNG today an estimated 85% of people continue to defecate directly into their local environment.
This accounts for PNG’s ranking amongst the worst in the world for access to safe, hygiene sanitation. It also drives PNG’s persistently poor health outcomes with regards to rates of typhoid; cholera; polio; stunting; malnutrition and child mortality.
While the link between sanitation and health outcomes is well known, the roll out of safe, hygienic toilets in PNG is failing to keep pace with rapid population growth and conditions have worsened over the past two decades.
WASH programmes that can be rapidly scaled up are needed to reverse this trend. Through thoughtful programming design, sanitation linked social and law and order issues in rural PNG could be tackled simultaneously.
THE
PROGRAMME
Gudpela Sindaun engages entire communities to secure local ownership: men (in the building) and women (in the catering and support roles).
BUILDING FUTURES
Young men reconnect with elders who pass on traditional skills (weaving, bamboo sourcing) and western skills (carpentry, plumbing) while a train the trainer approach delivers scalability by engaging many communities in this process.
When this happens, the widening sanitation gap in PNG can be closed. Fast. This in turn maximises the positive health impact.
Embedding pathways to employment for youth gives hope and removes the primary cause of the social and law and order issues: youth disengagement. It also provides the platform for scalability.
Gudpela Sindaun in tok pisin means“the good sit-down”: the good life. The concept is central to Wantaim PNG’s reason for being: to help rural PNG communities to thrive
IMPACT
Through innovative programme design and selection of environmentally sound technology, Gudpela Sindaun programme is delivering 16 of 17 UN SDGs.
PASSING ON SKILLS
With community elders leading teams of youth and passing on traditional and western skills, it is at once a story of hope and a celebration of tradition and culture.
Liklik Haus Kamapim Bigpela Senis (Little House Brings Big Change) featured on NBC PNG A Current Affair on World Toilet Day, 2018.
The 15 minute video documents Wantaim PNG’s discussions with 14 rural communities which inspired a locally led pilot and resulted in the completion of beautiful, safe, sanitation facilities for 320 people across 3 communities.