with Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, Local Solutions.
Changing attitudes,
changing toilets.
Fundraising Pitch Deck
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5 more minutes
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The founder story.
Oyungerel Tsedevdamba
Oyungerel grew up in a small rural town in Mongolia during communism. She studied planning economics at a university
in the USSR, but following the collapse of the Soviet Union,
she became an activist promoting market economy and democracy in Mongolia. She served as member of parliament (2012- 2016) and Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism(2012- 2014).�
In Mongolia, most toilets are located outside and are unsanitary and dangerous where children can fall into. In 2017, Oyungerel launched the campaign “Let’s Change Our Toilets”. She began by breaking a taboo against the use of the word ‘jorlon’ ( toilet), and continued on behavioral changing edu-marketing in order to adapt affordable, safe, indoor dry toilets in Mongolia’s cold climate market..
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The founder story.
Oyungerel Tsedevdamba
Oyungerel Tsedevdamba
1988 – Sverdlovsk Institute of National Economics, BA in planning economy
1993 – Moscow International Business School, MBA in business management
2004 – Stanford University, MA in International Policy Studies
2006 – Yale World Fellow
2012 - 2016 Member of the State Great Hural (Parliament) of Mongolia
2012 - 2014 – Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Mongolia
2010 - 2016 – President of the Democratic Women’s Union
2007- present, Founder and Board member of Local Solutions
2022 - present, Chairperson of the Civic Unity Party of Mongolia
2017 - present, Leader of the campaign “Let’s change our toilets”
Oyungerel Tsedevdamba authored 12 books including The Green Eyed Lama, the first Mongolian novel to be published in West.
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The background.
Local Solutions
"Local Solutions" (LS) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Ulaanbaatar. It is well known nationwide for its public-education campaign "Let's Change Our Toilets."
LS educates off-grid Ger Area residents on affordable ways of changing toilets to reduce soil pollution, and of improving homes, stoves and behaviors to reduce air pollution, as well as greening the land using organic waste and weeds. LS does not give away free items or toilets. Instead, it facilities the development of a business model to ensure sustainable change.
Mini Solutions
Mini Solutions Cooperative is a social enterprise solely dedicated to changing toilets. It offers the cheapest on the market indoor dry toilets and lease-to-buy financial solutions for low-income Ger Area residents. �To keep the toilet price low, MS offers products such as biodegradable bags and composters. It’s salespersons use an app developed by the project ‘Let’s change our toilets’ which helps track the loan payments, and outsources toilet installing, cabin construction and grey water system building to local micro-businesses and individuals..
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Changing attitudes,
changing toilets.
At Local Solutions, access to safe and reliable sanitation is our mission. Traditional pit toilets have been a source of injury and death, especially for children.
However, the public’s aversion to even discussing toilets was a cultural barrier to necessary change. We had to encourage people to talk about the problem, and market toilets freely and develop toilet products appropriate to Mongolia’s climatic and economic conditions.
�It is a basic human right to have a locally adapted safe and sanitary toilet at an affordable cost.
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The issue.
Traditional pit toilets
Not only are pit toilets a health risk in Mongolia, they also pose environmental, and life-threatening risks as well. Roughly 600,000 traditional pit toilets can be found across the country. The depth
of the pits range from 4 to 6 meters due to the need to have room for frozen piles during Mongolia’s long winter season.
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The issue.
Toilet-borne diseases such as diarrhea and hepatitis A cause 200-270 deaths every year. It is the leading cause of death for children under 5 in Mongolia.
5-8 children fall into the pits every year, only some of them are saved.
Traditional pit toilets
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The issue.
Disparity of economic benefits
Low-income families are heavily impacted by having pit toilets. Large volumes of feces underground pollute the environment and degrade
the quality of the homeowners lawn/yard/land.
The soil degradation causes land devaluation which ultimately denies the owners access to affordable financial services. Banks are less likely
to accept lands with traditional pit toilets as loan collateral. Even if it is accepted, it’s very likely that
the valuation is much lower compared to lands without pit toilets.
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The issue.
Disparity of economic benefits
Soil pollution is recorded in 88% of Ulaanbaatar’s land.
9 months of winter weather causes pit toilet feces to pile up and degrade soil.
Due to the degraded soil, lands in Ger Area are devalued significantly.
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The issue.
Cultural taboo
As a result of the problems caused by traditional pit toilets, Mongolians refrained from talking about – or even mentioning – toilets. The word and the concept itself have been stigmatized for years to the point where it has become a linguistic taboo.
Prior-to 2017, all government and international projects aimed at changing toilets used various “safe terms” such as “sanitation structure”, “detached engineering structure”, “water and sanitation facility”… but never the word ‘jorlon’ (toilet in Mongolian).
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The issue.
Cultural taboo
A law draft initiated by Oyungerel in 2015 was censored by Mongolia’s Parliament and Cabinet for containing a chapter on ‘jorlon’. Then an MP, Oyungerel was shocked at the censorship of her law draft. The incident convinced her and the Local Solutions team that change is not going to come from the top.
At the same time, in the Mongolian business world, no one used the word ‘‘jorlon’ in their marketing. Workers in the sanitation sector avoided dealing with pit toilets. No bank issued toilet loans. No registered company specialized on toilet products.
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Without first breaking
the taboo, there was
no hope for change.
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Breaking the taboo.
The book
On November 19, 2017, Local Solutions launched Oyungerel’s book titled Let’s change our toilets where she introduced 15 toilet technologies, 10 toilet businesses and 7 examples of citizens’ involvement in sanitation policies in various counties. Although the book didn’t offer a toilet solution specific to the Mongolian environment, it became the main resource for LS’s nationwide toilet workshops.
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Breaking the taboo.
The nationwide tour
�A Local Solutions training team of 8-10 persons traveled 25,000 kilometers, reaching all 21 provinces of Mongolia and all districts of Ulaanbaatar conducting 56 workshops for 5000 attendees in 2018. Each 8-hour workshop provided an opportunity for attendees to discuss toilet choices extensively and clarify Mongolians’ toilet choice preferences to
the LS team.
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Breaking the taboo.
Continuous education
As observed, the cultural taboo is being lifted
layer by layer in Mongolia. Local Solutions’ project “Let’s change our toilet” is the only public education project that is dedicated to furthering the public education on toilets till all the dangerous pit toilets are dismantled.
Barrier layers:
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The solutions.
99.9% Voted
for Dry Toilets
As a result of our nationwide tour, we learned
what people wanted: almost everyone of the 5000 attendees of our training voted for dry toilets. After extensive research on design, affordability, and effectiveness to change household toilets, urine diverting Biolan Simplett toilet was determined
to be the solution. It is waterless, energy efficient*,
and odorless.
*the dry toilet is energy efficient as it does not require pipe insulation to keep the urine and blackwater from freezing during winter.
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The solutions.
Biolan Simplett is the cheapest on the market, 40% less than other toilets.
Annual maintenance cost is 10x cheaper than an emptiable outdoor toilet, and 30x cheaper than a water closet connected to a septic tank.
Saves 300 liter water per household per day.
Portable design allows it to be
placed indoors.
Use of sawdust and vent pipe makes
it odorless.
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The solutions.
How our toilet works
Features and the use of the Biolan Simplett toilet:
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The solutions.
Adapting toilets to Mongolia
Local Solutions developed various products and solutions in order to make Biolan Simplett culturally acceptable for Mongolians to use. Along with trained local vendors, Mini Solutions Cooperative offers the products to the market.
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The solutions.
Adapting toilets to Mongolia
Mongolian Ger (yurt) winter cabin with a toilet.
Summer toilet cabin for Biolan Simplett.
Summer and winter gray-water reed-bed system.
Festival toilet tents.
Festival urine points “Mori Harah”
(See a horse).
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The solutions.
Adapting toilets to Mongolia
Indoor dry toilet installments (from a corner solution to a separate toilet room).
Semi-passive house with indoor toilet and grey water system.
Installing cabins for Public dry toilet Biolan Populett.
Instructions for the installing, building and managing above-mentioned products.
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The solutions.
Complementing sustainable products
Mini Solutions Cooperative offers complementing sustainable products that help lead a more sustainable life.
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These products include:
The solutions.
Complementing sustainable products
Each sale of these products helps subsidize the cost of the dry toilets – making the dry toilets affordable and accessible to the lowest-income families.
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The solutions.
How our toilet business works
Mini Solutions Cooperative uses the mini solutions app developed by the Project “Let’s change our toilets”:
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The solutions.
Edu-Marketing (educational & training)
A large part of Local Solutions’ efforts to break
the taboo is our continuous educational workshops and social media posts/videos on toilets to the general public.
The trainings, educational videos and posts of
“Let’s Change Our Toilets” encourage conversation, remove the stigma surrounding toilet, and convince the transition to more sanitary and safe toilets and green lifestyle.
Additionally, we work with third party toilet service providers/engineers to share our findings and feedback on proper toilet installation.
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The solutions.
Edu-Marketing (educational & training)
Our in-class and online training agenda include:
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The combined solutions.
Semi-passive house
Local Solutions developed an affordable house and its financial model as a part of its mission to introduce safe indoor dry toilets. Three semi-passive houses were built and the Capitron Bank of Mongolia provided a 7-year mortgage for the houses. They successfully received a real-estate registration by the State Registrar. It is common in Mongolia that ger area houses are often denied registration as real estate.
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The combined solutions.
Semi-passive house
Features of the Semi-passive house:�
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Why our project is effective?
The word “toilet” is now largely used in public
Provided toilet training to more than 6,000 people
In 2018, our “Let’s Change Our Toilet” campaign broke the taboo
Local Solution has sold and converted over 900 dry toilets
Developed 30 affordable sustainability products to subsidize toilet cost.
Kick-started a toilet industry embracing 64 toilet service providers
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We need your help! – Fundraising.
In order for Local Solutions and Mini Solutions to convert the remaining 599,000 toilets in Mongolia, we must continue to provide the right education to people from every corner of Mongolia.
Our educational program is the foundation of our activities. These programs taps into the minds and changes the individual’s approach towards toilets. Only by breaking the prejudice/taboo towards toilet, can we finally change toilets.
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We need your help! – Fundraising.
Help us sustain our educational program to achieve our mission: Changing Minds, Changing Toilets.
Fundraising Target: US$ 175,000
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Fundraising target: US$175.000 – Breakdown.
Operational cost: �US$120,000
Facilities construction:�US$55,000
Continuous toilet education
We aim to raise enough funds to cover the operational costs of Local Solutions in providing educational training programs across Mongolia. Our annual operating budget is US$ 40,000. We hope to cover operations for the next three years.
Annual operational expense breakdown
Training for next three years�Within three years we hope to outreach 21 provinces and conduct:
Energy-efficient work space with an indoor dry toilet
This facility will act as a storage unit for Mini Solutions and a training center for Local Solutions. Additionally, we hope this will grow to become a showcase for current and future entrepreneurs and a green building product on the market.
Cost breakdown
A new style of business facility in Ger Area
In Mongolia there is no business facility with an indoor dry toilet. This facility will be the first model and an educational example and teaching tool..
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Energy efficient work space with a dry indoor toilet.
Local Solutions is planning to develop and build an energy-efficient multi-purpose facility of 12 x 8 meters size(96㎡) which can serve as a model for local businesses and a show-room and storage for the project “Let’s change our toilets”.
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Energy efficient work space with a dry indoor toilet.
Features:
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Energy efficient work space with a dry indoor toilet.
Good news
Nearly 900 families that purchased Biolan Simplett via the project “Let’s change our toilets” have successfully dismantled their traditional pit toilets. The space in their property yard opened up for tree planting and other development. Women, children, elderly, disabled people are especially happy in those families as the fear of falling into toilets is gone.
In order to accelerate toilet change, toilets must be adapted from family use to everyday workplace use. Successful home toilet change the Ger Area is making work-space change possible.
Bad news
Thanks to breaking a toilet taboo in general, politicians now use the word freely and like to rally to change toilets. Alas, wrongly! Millions of dollars were spent by the government in 2021-2022 just to erect thousands of pit toilets. The government’s free pit toilets don’t solve the problem of health, soil pollution and economic disparity. The families end up having less space in their yards due to the necessity to keep the deep-pit toilets along with the shallow-pit, impractical toilets. Local Solutions must continue its public education work to influence the families’ choices over the inferior government free handouts.
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Energy efficient work space with a dry indoor toilet will stop misuse of public fund for wrong toilets.
COMPARISON
Cost in US Dollars: Government (G) VS Mini Solutions (MS)
A year’s cost of maintaining a toilet:
G: 68.6 MS: 6.3
Building cost with a cabin:
G: 1,028 MS: 771
Building cost without a cabin:
G: N/A MS: 285
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Three types of toilets sold by Oyuna
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1. Nomadic Toilet
Price: 1 million MNT(43,000 JPY)
Use: For monadic area
2. Simplet Toilet
Price: 1.2 million MNT(50,000 JPY)
Use: For cities
3. Icelette Toilet
Price: 9.5 million MNT(390,000 JPY)
Use: For cities
With your help, our efforts to change toilets will continue.
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