Tauw Foundation WASH project:� �The first MVP�

Training local village communities through Model Village Programs (MVPs), turning

them into local centers of WASH excellence that can power a regional WASH⁺ rollout.

This pilot project demonstrates that the MVP is a viable model to:

(1) get safe WASH to all (sub)tropical village families in the world by 2030;

(2) act as a catalyst towards achieving this goal.

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Contract No:  Tauw Foundation, project 601

8 June 2023,

Updated 25 June with results of the closing ceremony and publicity

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� �A milestone project:

the first MVP (scale-up unit)

in a vision endorsed at the��

� �On the left: the poster we exhibited at the UN Innovation Pavilion @

UN Water Conference, New York, 22 – 24 March 2023

Summary: TF Grant scope & outcomes

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Executive Summary: success beyond expectation

Project aim�The original purpose of the project was to demonstrate that affordable safe WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) –powered by the Safe Water Garden– can be rolled out in Indonesia by communities themselves.

�Specifically, the project aimed to pilot the WASH scale-up vehicle, a so-called MVP (Model Village Program). The first MVP set out to empower a village in Bintan to become a regional WASH knowledge center that could subsequently power a regional rollout without outside help.

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The first MVP pilot became 3 MVP pilots

To solve the issue of securing sufficient public funding, instead of doing 1 village, we ended up doing 3 neighboring villages. Since villages regard themselves as separate entities, the project was essentially replicated three times, giving us a fantastic learning curve and enabling us to draw conclusions that have national –and most likely international– validity.

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Link to info folders

Aside from this report, there are two very detailed information folders:

1. A dropbox folder which contains all photos and videos of the project, including media about our teaching sessions
2. A Google drive folder which contains copies of the national WASH 1.0 curriculum that was developed as part of this project, as well as a copy of this report and other feedback reports.

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Project conclusions.

It is possible to:

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1. Teach communities to install their own WASH facilities and empower them to teach others.
2. Use existing village funds and user-funds (through micro loans) to get safe WASH for < € 400 per family on average. This amount is so small that every (sub)tropical country can afford it.
3. Empower communities to conduct their own very high quality census surveys (something that every developing country badly needs) and use these surveys to transparently decide who needs WASH facilities.
4. Set communities on their way to help each other to adopt healthy eating habits, start micro-farms and more generally, start micro-businesses and demonstrate that the appetite to do so is far higher than was generally assumed.
5. Empower women to take a lead role in the development and operation of micro-businesses
6. Gain the support from provincial governors (comparable to US state governors) and district regents to promote the subsequent district and regional rollout
7. Use this pilot project to gain significant support from key people and key organisations around the world to join our aim: safe WASH for every (sub) tropical family in the world for < € 400, before 2030

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Photo: 2019 WASH project in Belitung

It’s all about transferring knowledge

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and

changing lives

General notes on the WASH systems�that power the grand scale-up vision

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A quick summary of the type of WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) systems deployed in our projects

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Step 1. Safe Water Garden: �The technical innovation that drives the project

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A Safe Water Garden (SWG) is modeled on an original UNICEF concept.

It suits individual households and community centers like rural schools.

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Main components per SWG:

1. A closed plastic 500 ltr tank (the liquefier) connected to the toilet & the shower/laundry (filled up with water to overflow point)

2. A 2 x 3 x 0.5 m leach field (garden) (where the fully liquefied wastewater is safely released underground)

3. A system of pipes connecting the parts

4. A separate kitchen sink with a separate small leach field ⁽¹⁾

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(1) Without a kitchen sink, many villagers do their dishes in the toilet/shower room. But oily kitchen wastewater would lead to worms & maggots in the tank – which seize up the system. To avoid this, a separate kitchen sink is a key component of the SWG

toilet &

shower

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In 2019, the Indonesian Standards Board officially designated the Safe Water Garden fit for use for up to 10 households (per SWG).

How do we know the SWG is the world’s most cost-efficient sanitation system?

It is generally accepted in global sanitation science that a good autonomous sanitation system must feature at least a 2-stage process (a tank and a leach field).

The SWG was the result of research efforts to minimize the cost of such a 2-stage system while delivering all desired outcomes.

Government-approved

https://safewatergardens.org/cost-efficiency

making the SWG officially the world’s most cost-efficient sanitation system

Key Benefits of Safe Water Gardens

Prevents diseases that originate from polluted surface water

• Direct prevention: children are no longer in contact with polluted surface water
• Indirect prevention: fewer flies and rodents carry diseases near households

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Improves social status

• The houses no longer smell, have fewer insects and they feature a beautiful garden

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Improves life quality, and sharply reduces (gender) inequality

• When used properly, the system is entirely maintenance-free, the key feature of the SWG.
• With the lethal grey water puddles gone, children can now safely play outside the house
• Enhances spiritual well-being since a clean environment speaks to religious beliefs
• Removes the single biggest source of rural-urban inequality and boosts gender-equality

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Catalyzes food production and a female-led/national economy

• Catalyzes year-round growth of crop or spices in the gardens, which can be sold or consumed
• 10-50% household income savings/gains, also on account of fewer sick days of leave
• Triggers healthy diets & micro-businesses like restaurants and homestays, chiefly run by women

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Profound positive impact on the environment

• Fully water-circular and the SWG can recycle pre-existing village plastic waste into sanitation parts
• A family on safe sanitation avoids 40 kg of methane each year, equivalent to 20 tonnes CO2 (20 carbon credits) over a period of 20 years

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Highly affordable and promotes local ownership

• The SWG is the world’s cheapest sanitation system: if shared by 2 – 3 households the cost is < $ 200 per family on average
• Fully affordable to local communities (using village funds and microloans), and local people can assume full ownership
• Families can build their own SWG in just one day; the SWG requires no special construction skills

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Supports 14 United Nations

thus illustrating the key role of sanitation⁽¹⁾

(1) Sanitation is Indonesia’s third national priority –right after food security and housing– in recognition of its profound impact on society and sustainability

Step 2. Extend sanitation to WASH

We widened the project to include all of WASH�The presence of water is not an issue in tropical villages; good sanitation is the problem. Doing the SWG projects, we discovered that it is easy and cheap to provide running water + clean drinking water at the same time –and thus complete the WASH revolution for families: villagers need a bit of assistance to build an SWG, but they all know how to build a water tower.

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Running water

All you need for running water is a simple water tower, a small pump and some pipes to the water source. Every Indonesian family knows how to build such systems themselves, and the systems lend themselves very well to sharing, which make them highly affordable.

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WASH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene)

Having a running water system saves the average family around 1 - 2 hours of work every day (taking water manually from the well); it enables them to start growing crops (using a garden hose that can be attached to the tower); and it enables hand-washing and COVID hygiene.

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Nazava clean water filter�This ceramic filter delivers W.H.O approved quality water (from any input source), and it is so simple and so affordable that it makes complete sense to add it in.

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The 3 villages involved in this project had already partly addressed their water access issue by pumping water from nearby lakes into centralised towers, so we focussed on providing new washrooms, SWGs and Nazava filters.

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The project included 58 Nazava water filters for 58 families – delivering the cleanest drinking water in Indonesia.

Running water was provided for 6 of the 48 families that received WASH (the rest already had access to water) – but we gave all 58 families a garden hose so they could leverage their running water for crop growing.

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WASH facilities inspire micro-farming, agri-tourism & (gender) equality�xx

WASH boosts self-esteem, environmental awareness, village beautification (regular re-paint and flowers), micro-farming, and healthy home-grown food.

This, in turn, fuels a national target, which we refer to as an extension to WASH⁺: Local agri-tourism, featuring beautiful homestays and delicious home-cooking based on local food, providing high-quality jobs (particularly for women) and a high-quality sustainable future for village communities, eradicating the rural-urban inequality and reversing the harmful rural exodus to the cities.

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Step 3. Extend to WASH⁺ – Sustainable villages

WASH⁺ : Eliminating stunted growth

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Our aim: healthy food for Rp 150,000 (€ 10) per person per month�xx

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Stunting is caused by a lack of diversity in food; not by a lack of quantity.

Villagers simply don’t know that plant-based food is rich in nutrients and look down on plant-based dishes as “poor people’s food”. But once they realise home-grown village food is healthy and delicious, contempt turns to pride.

Our aim: using the new WASH facilities as the engine, create a national library of delicious healthy village dishes at Rp 150,000 (€ 10) per person per month – by Indonesians for Indonesians and the wider world (see next 2 pages).

Villagers can then also proudly sell their best dishes to visitors!

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A sample info slide to show villagers where they can find Vitamin A.

Tofu with vegetable fillings�Ibu Kassikem – Bumi Indah, Bintan, Riau Island

Spice Mix: Vegetable Filling:

• 3 Shallots • 200g Glass Noodles

• 2 Garlic cloves • 50g Carrot, thinly sliced

• tsp Salt • 2 stalks Celery leaf

• 10 White Pepper Seeds

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Batter Mix:

• 6pc of Firm Tofu

• 100g Multi-Purpose Flour

• 1 cup Water

• 1 Egg

• 1 tsp Masako

Preparation Method

• Soak glass noodles in warm water till soft. Once soft, use a kitchen scissor and cut to short lengths. In a blender, blend all the spice mix ingredients (shallot, garlic, salt, white pepper seeds) into a smooth paste. You can also use a mortar and pestle if you have one.
• In a heated wok, add 1 tablespoon of oil and add in spice mix paste. Fry over medium heat until fragrant. Add vegetable fillings and stir fry until fragrant.
• Pat dry the firm tofu with a kitchen towel and cut each piece diagonally to form 2 triangles. Pan-fry or deep fry the tofu triangles until all edges are slightly golden brown. Set aside and allow the tofu to cool down. Once cool, create a pocket on the side of the triangle for the vegetable filling.
• Fill each tofu with 1 tablespoon of cooked vegetable filling. (Optional) You can remove some tofu from the pocket and mix with the vegetable filling before stuffing the tofu triangles.
• In a bowl, mix the batter. The mixture should have a pancake batter consistency to coat the tofu for frying.
• Dip the stuffed tofu triangles into the batter and in a heated wok of oil, fry the stuffed tofu till golden brown.

Homemade Snacks: Cheap and easy.

“This is my favorite dish to serve to my guests”

About Ibu Kassikem

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I live in Kampung Bumi Indah, Bintan island, together with my husband.

We have a plantation where we grow vegetables to sell as well as use for our own consumption.

It’s hard work to tend the farm but we enjoy it because we are in each other’s company.

Despite the tough situation Covid has brought, we are still very happy looking after our farm together in each other’s company.

Ingredient List

Sample page of the national library of healthy village dishes (English)

Oseng Kacang Panjang�Ibu Sarinah – Kawal, Bintan Island

“Kami memasak terutama masakan sayuran di rumah karena mudah dimasak dan harganya murah, terutama karena kami mulai menanamnya sendiri. Kecuali cucu pertama saya Rino, semua anggota keluarga saya suka makan sayur.”

Bahan-Bahan

• 200g Kacang Panjang
• 10g Bawang Merah
• 10g Bawang Putih
• 10g Cabe Merah
• Garam secukupnya
• Micin secukupnya
• (Optional) Gula Pasir
• Minyak Goreng

Cara Memasak

• Potong kacang panjang dan iris cabai merah, bawang merah dan bawang putih.
• Dalam wajan yang sudah dipanaskan, tumis bawang merah, bawang putih, dan irisan cabai dengan 1 sdm minyak goreng hingga harum. Lakukan ini dengan api sedang.
• Masukkan kacang panjang dan tumis hingga kacang panjang berubah warna menjadi hijau tua.
• Masukkan kacang panjang dan tumis hingga kacang panjang berubah warna menjadi hijau tua.

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Tentang Ibu Ara

Keluarga dan teman-teman saya memanggil saya Ara. Saya lahir di sebuah desa kecil di tepi pantai di Bintan dan sekarang tinggal di sebuah desa tepi laut yang lebih besar di pesisir timur (Kawal) Bintan. Saya sudah menikah dan saya punya dua anak. Putri saya meninggal dalam kecelakaan sepeda motor ketika dia berusia 11 tahun, tetapi saya tinggal bersebelahan dengan putra saya, Romi, dan sekarang saya memiliki dua cucu yang cantik! Bersama dengan putra saya, saya memiliki pekerjaan di resor ramah lingkungan. Saya suka berolahraga: bermain bola voli dan bulu tangkis dengan tetangga dan teman membuat saya bahagia! Saya takut ular dan melihat darah membuat saya pusing.

Harapan saya ke depan cucu saya bisa kuliah dan bisa kembali bekerja di Bintan!

Sample page of the national library of healthy village dishes (Bahasa Indonesia)

The path to global scale-up: MVPs

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Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

USD 350k

USD 250k

USD 3M

Build

300 SWGs

Complete

Research

Project

Incorporate

SWG P/L

Design & Test

Construction

Manual

SWG recognized

National Standard

Indonesia

Bintan

Bintan

Scale-Up Trials

3 small Villages

3 x 30 SWG ✅

MNC 25 SWG Trial

Scale-Up Units

”MVPs”¹

(train the trainers)

10 Villages

1,000 SWG

Indonesia

Complete the

Global WASH

Research agenda

International advocacy and partnership outreach

300 SWG

225 SWG

1k SWG

10k SWG

100k SWG

1m SWG

10m+ SWG

Funds already raised/still needed

Completed

Completed

Phase 4

Phase 5

USD 0

USD 0 (phase 4 and 5 are financed by public money & MNC money)

intensify

International

advocacy and

partnership

outreach

Worldwide

SWGs are a well

established standard

across Indonesia

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28m rural households

6 – 12 m SWGs

Quality Control

throughout all

phases,

assured through

Scientific

monitoring

Organic Scale-up

Villages build their own SWGs

Managed Scale-Up

50 Starter Villages

each year¹

5,000 SWG/yr

Indonesia & beyond

1. An MVP (Model Village Program) is a “starter village”. One such MVP for each district/tribe/dialect group acts as a local teaching center of WASH excellence powering a regional rollout

�The Scale-up is driven by �the MVPs (the starter villages) …� �The Tauw Foundation project was the very first one:�the TF grant allowed us to develop the concept as outlined in the next few pages

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Clean up & recycle

all village waste into SWG parts (SWBs)�xx

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Leverage on WASH to promote micro-farming and healthy living, enabling high-quality jobs and micro-enterprises

(farming, agri-tourism, etc)�xx

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location mandi�xx

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(SWG)x

MVPs (starter villages) begin with �actionable government-compliant data collection …

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A beautiful and simple app (which can be operated by the communities themselves) will be used to collect detailed individual household info

The bilingual app compiles and analyses the data in a format required by the government

… revealing the national & local urgency

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All village households (HH) are mapped via GPS

Not a single HH (!) satisfies the national definition of safe sanitation …

A granular view reveals that even ”basic sanitation” is often unacceptable

Education + stakeholder engagement�is the key to a successful MVP^*

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The funders:

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1. Companies/regional gov’ (to fund trainings)
2. Village (Desa) funds (co-fund materials)
3. MFI & villagers (to agree on microloans)

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The actors:

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1. SWG team
2. Universities (local and national)
3. Global Water Partnership (our data partner)
4. PUPR (sanitation authority)
5. Regent (Bupati) or Governor (both elected)
6. Village representatives:
1. Village chiefs: KD, RW, RT (elected)
2. Sekdes (permanent secretary)
3. Youth Organisation → WASH trainees
4. Women’s Association → Diet trainees

(*) The next 3 pages are a direct result of the work made possible by the Tauw Foundation grant. The grant enabled us to identify all the key stakeholders as well as the key MVP stages

Yudha: please translate these 3 pages and add one page on how the new WASH trainee can charge money to other villages in the regional rollout (WASH curriculum topic 5)

Key stages of an MVP – 1

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Key stages of an MVP – 2

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STEP 8

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Run end surveys, start WASH+

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WEEK 10

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SWG + University teams meet all local stakeholders

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- Since the WASH project is finished by now, the WASH trainees will conduct a user satisfaction survey amongst the WASH recipients (after receiving simple training on how to conduct this survey)

- We will do a joint financial reporting on the Public- Private material budget

- SWG + U teams start training Women Association in WASH+, i.e. microfarming, healthy diets + how to open & start a microbusiness

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STEP 10

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Closing ceremony

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WEEK 12

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All stakeholders + media

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- SWG + Uni teams present surveys and results to regent/governor

- We ask the governor to ceremoniously hand over the certificates (signed by SWG and the Uni’s) to the WASH & WASH+ trainees

- Publicity blitz (governor always brings in the media for such feel-good events) & all stakeholders can bask in the glory – everyone will come out looking a winner

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STEP 7

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Discuss micro loan terms

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WEEK 8

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SWG + MFI teams meet village chiefs

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- SWG teams first discuss the micro loan survey results with the village chiefs and we will discuss possible loan terms

- SWG teams call in the MFI to meet with the village leadership teams to work out mutually beneficial agreements on the microloan terms

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STEP 11

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Regional rollout begins

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SWG teams + new WASH experts + region

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- The publicity and comms channels between village heads will alert other KDs to the huge potential to deploy their village funds + MFI funds to deliver WASH. They can then arrange with the MVP WASH teams to receive training.

- MVP WASH teams will exercise quality control and continue running WASH+ surveys the next 9 months

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Summary: Tauw Foundation project

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Contract milestones

• Phase 0: Finalizing the contract; start of the project
• Phase 1: Securing all partnerships/public commitments
• Phase 2: Get whole village community on board; leverage the project to gain international PR
• Phase 3 – 5: see next pages

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Outcomes met & exceeded expectation

Phases 0 – 2 (matching steps 1 – 4 in the MVP script on the preceding pages) exceeded expectations as we constructed a future-proof corruption-free PPP (Public Private Partnership) structure underpinned by hard data, which we were invited to exhibit at the March UN Water Conference in New York (refer to slide 2 and slide 68)

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The target of phases 0 – 2 was to get a solid public commitment in a format that can readily be replicated nationally. This took much longer time than we originally planned. The original plan –to ask regents or governors for funding– proved riddled with red tape, so we had to find another way, which, in the end, proved perfect and replicable: approach the target-villages directly and ask them to tap into their village funds to co-fund the material cost – to the tune of 50%. As it turns out, every village chief we asked jumped on the chance to gain WASH assets and a knowledge center at half price!

In any public project, the question of corruption always hangs in the air and can prevent project from getting off the ground. Doing a joint project with a predetermined amount of money, however, makes the project inherently corruption-free: all stakeholders wish to show that the available money was well spent.

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We found that village chiefs are delighted to sign up to such a clean and meaningful project and to allocate part of their roughly € 100K annual budget to it. We discovered that the annual village budget planning is done in June/July of the preceding year but that village chiefs can be creative in allocating money even after June-July, for instance via taking our credits with local material shops (as we had to do for some of the villages as we made our deals in Dec 2022).

We also realised that it was critically important to provide clear evidence of the need for a WASH project by doing census surveys. Such surveys enables village chiefs / ourselves to report transparently to their line managers / our sponsors.

We took a long time, basically through learning by doing, to develop the “MVP script” of the 3 preceding pages, but it was time well spent since we are all convinced that this script is robust and replicable.

Deliverables delivered: phases 0 – 2 are covered in MVP script steps 1 – 4 and TF transferred the money for these phases on/before 12 May. We successfully used the project to generate PR –ref slide 68 onwards

Summary: Tauw Foundation project

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Contract milestones

• Phase 3: Report on WASH installation of 46 complete WASH systems + WASH census data of ~ 1,300 families
• Deliverables: Evaluation Report / Video clip / Report on census data of ~ 1,300 families

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Outcomes met & exceeded expectation

Phase 3: The WASH census survey was a huge success, after sorting out some technical hiccups and fine-tuning the questions to get the most useful results. The extensive but easily readable data reports (in PPT format) can be viewed in chapter 4 of the Google folder.

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We successfully taught the appointed survey trainees to conduct their own village surveys in just 2 days of training. In each of the three villages,

8 village surveyors collected complete data of all ~400 families, and we learned that this process can be completed in just 2 weeks and that the total number of families was exactly 1234.

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The data showed that:

(1) nobody was on safe sanitation (following gov’t/UN definitions)

(2) ~ 3% of the people were still on OD (open defecation).

(3) ~ 50% of families are on sub-standard sanitation

(4) ~ 30% of families do not have access to running water

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The village teams were simultaneously delighted (with the detailed data) and shocked with the results, and we made a joint decision together with the village leadership to help the families on OD first.

In Busung and Kuala Sempang, that meant we could help all OD families. Since Pengujan is split in 3 sub-villages, a decision was made to split the help over the worst affected families in each sub-village. Also, some of the OD families in Pengujan live above the water, so we could not (yet) help them with the SWG, which in its current form is a land-based system (but we have a solution that we’d like to try out, see the appendix of this report)

Furthermore, to demonstrate that the SWG costs on average can stay below € 200 per family, we did one triple-share system in each of the villages, and the villages enthusiastically signed up to the idea that their village would be used to feature as an example that the SWG can indeed be shared. The details of which families we helped with what systems are in the next section.

Each of the 3 villages put forward two young and bright WASH trainees who agreed to become a WASH+ expert and to supervise the installation of all the WASH systems as well as a local team of 8 diggers per village. In the spirit of full transparency, the modest fees for the diggers (~€35 per SWG or washroom) and the WASH trainees (€ 10/day) were happily agreed to by all. The new trainees did a stellar job and finished the installations in record time (~ 4 systems per day per village) and they passed the exams set by our university teams with flying colours (refer to the next slide).

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Deliverables delivered: Refer to this report and the very detailed survey reports in the link on this page (and further discussions on the upcoming pages). There are dozens of video clips in our photo and video folder, neatly organised by village and by topic and by family. We went further than 46 systems; in the end we had 48 systems, see details on upcoming pages.

Summary: Tauw Foundation project

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Contract milestones

• Phase 4: Report on “Train-the-trainer education” WASH curriculum 1.0, developed with the TF grant
• Deliverables: A copy of the curriculum (materials) / user satisfaction data of 46 systems / Video animations on construction

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Outcomes met & exceeded expectation

Phase 4: In my capacity as a published educational author I’m overjoyed with the WASH⁺ curriculum created by our staff, our NGO partners, and our university professors (led by our very own Drs. Yudha, who is a research scholar on a PhD in Safe Water Gardens at the National University of Singapore): it uses national materials to put the issues in both a global and local context.

We successfully trained the surveyors, the WASH trainees (who gained the knowledge to teach other villages how to install their own WASH systems at < €400 per family), and the local women association teams to teach WASH⁺ (starting a micro-business and healthy diets): everybody passed the exams with flying colours!

The bilingual extensive teaching materials can be found here and are split up in 5 different units: (1) sanitation; (2) water; (3) healthy food and micro-business development using microloans with a focus to develop micro-farming and community tourism businesses; (4) data surveying; (5) how to roll out the same WASH⁺ programs to other villages.

The same folder also features the interactive exam materials; videos and photos of the teaching sessions can be found in the dropbox folder.

We know the teaching modules were successful because:

1. the local surveyors passed their exams and managed to get high-quality data from all villagers (as evidenced by the survey files)
2. the WASH trainees successfully supervised the WASH installations with their own teams of diggers (as evidenced by them passing the exams and the very happy user-feedback surveys, see the slides starting here.
3. the women’s association succeeded making a start with getting every family registered as a micro-business (see this slide) and getting other women animated with the idea of being proud of their plant-based dishes, cook together, and offer their dishes to local and foreign visitors, as evidenced through the feedback surveys starting on this slide.

Deliverables delivered:

• The curriculum materials are in this Google drive link.
• The user satisfaction data are discussed in greater detail in the slides starting here, and very detailed copies are found in chapter 4 of the Google drive folder.
• The video animation on construction can be found in the Google drive folder, which features lively educational powerpoint slides with embedded videos. The main point of this deliverable was to have a successful start of the WASH 1.0 curriculum and this curriculum did the job, as evidenced by the points above. Other videos of the actual construction are in the dropbox folder.

Summary: Tauw Foundation project

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Contract milestones

• Phase 5: Final report on completion of WASH+; user-satisfaction surveys; survey-testing of interest in microloans; and village readiness to act as a regional WASH+ knowledge centre
• Deliverables: Overall Report, incl microloans + user satisfaction surveys / Media posts & other publicity

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Outcomes met & exceeded expectation

Phase 5: As we learned at the UN Water conference, there is a huge emphasis on empowering communities by giving them access to high-quality microloans, but once again, the lack of insight through data is a major issue. We conducted what may well be the first complete census survey on the interest in microloans (all 383 families of Pengujan village were surveyed, see the link to the survey questions and the exact results here) and the conclusion is literally an eye-opener to the world:

• almost half of the 92 families without access to running water said they wished to access a € 100 - 300 loan to build a (shared) water tower
• > 10% said they wanted to borrow money to get a Nazava filter (and this percentage is surely set to rise once people see first-hand how good that filter is)

• more than 10% said they wished to borrow money to start a micro-business focusing on microfarming and tourism services
• 8% wished to take a loan to get an SWG (noting that the worst-affected families already received one and that demand will surely rise once people know how good the SWG is).
• The total value of loan request exceeds € 25,000, an amount that makes it very attractive for MFIs to address this market (as acknowledged by Bintan’s three leading MFIs).

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The end-user satisfaction report, meanwhile, is the customary huge success with all recipients declaring themselves super happy. Details on this slide.

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Finally, and super excitingly: the newly trained WASH trainees are ready to inform and teach all other village chiefs in Bintan; the governor and his wife appear to be ready to committing to getting WASH census data of the entire island in the next 6 months; and apparently Bintan’s government has set aside the necessary funds to complete safe sanitation for everyone by 2026! See these 3 slides.

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Deliverables delivered: Refer to this report, the detailed reports on microloans on these two slides, to the latest posts on LinkedIn, and to our publicity slides. The regional rollout referred to above would be a huge bonus, and we’ll do everything we can to make it happen!

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Key people

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SWG senior team: Dr Marc van Loo, Jaya Putra (project lead), Achmad (assistant), Drs. Yudha Prasetyatama (lecturer at UGM, PhD student in SWG at NUS, research and curriculum lead), Fany Wedahuditama (director of GWP Asia, survey lead), Prof Henky Irawan (Indonesia top 5-ranked researcher at UMRAH, WASH⁺ lead)

Village leadership teams: 3 Kepala Desa (village chief): Rusli MH, (Busung), M. Hatta (Kuala Sempang), Zulfitri (Pengujan), 3 Sekdes (permanent secretaries) and around 20 sub-chiefs.

Local WASH trainees: Abdul Samad + Misran from Busung; Hazuar + Riza Safriya Hastika from Pengujan; Rianto + Ferry Budi Aprilianto from Kuala Sempang

Woman Associations (WA): one for each village.

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Marc Jaya Achmad Yudha Fany Henky

WA Busung

WA + WASH trainees Kuala Sempang + Henky & Jaya

WA Pengujan

Riza

Rianto

Ferry

WASH trainees right after the SWG exam

Samad

Misran

Hazuar

Project Location

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3 neighboring villages in Bintan –each with around 400 families– were chosen to be developed as a joint WASH knowledge center in the TF project:

• Busung,
• Kuala Sempang
• Pengujan

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Pengujan

Kuala Sempang

Busung

Project Location

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An overview of the WASH work sites

Template page, for future use, to replace the previous slide

(Shocking) Census Survey findings + action

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Total number of houses surveyed in all 3 villages: 1,234 (%)�Households on safe sanitation (using UN definition): 0 ( 0 ) !!

Households on OD (Open Defecation): 38 ( 3 )

Households on substandard sanitation: 583 (47)

Households without running water: 350 (28)

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Total number of houses surveyed in Busung: 400�Households on safe sanitation (using UN definition): 0 ( 0 )

Households on OD (Open Defecation): 3 ( 1 )

Households on substandard sanitation: ~197 (49)

Households without running water: 6 ( 2 )

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Total number of houses surveyed Kuala Sempang: 451�Households on safe sanitation (using UN definition): 0 ( 0 )

Households on OD (Open Defecation): 14 ( 3 )

Households on substandard sanitation: 187 (41)

Households without running water: 288 (64)

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Total number of houses surveyed in Pengujan: 383�Households on safe sanitation (using UN definition): 0 ( 0 )

Households on OD (Open Defecation): 21 ( 5 )

Households on substandard sanitation: 199 (52)

Households without running water: 92 (24)

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​

​

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This survey informed our decision-making as follows:

All village leaders agreed that we should help the families on OD

(Open Defecation) first, and so we did in Busung and Kuala Sempang.

Pengujan is split in 3 Dusun (sub-villages) so we split the 12 systems we did in Pengujan over these 3 Dusun. Since the OD families tend to live in isolation, they cannot share the systems, and they all needed a washroom as well, which they received. The 6 families who did not yet have running water received water access through public water meters or their own towers. To demonstrate that the sharing system works, each village chose 3 neighboring families to share one SWG.

�

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Not a single HH in Pengujan satisfies the national definition of safe sanitation …

The WASH recipients

33

58 families (216 residents) received complete WASH.

18 residents gained access to running water.

Here you can see the locations of the WASH recipients (Note: some locations (flags) are slightly off on account of map-scaling issues)

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Data control:

Our organisation and the owner of the data (the government) can see these locations in the survey app itself and click on each flag to obtain the complete survey data for that household.

Busung

Mr. Afandi

(#14), the

new toilet just before they put in the door

Pengujan

Ms. Hasnah

(#44) with her

new SWG

Kuala Sempang Mr. Arifli Junaidi (#36), with his toilet before, here seen building his new WASH systems!

The WASH recipients

34

A detailed view is available in Google Earth, and the .kmz (Google earth file) can be downloaded here.

58 families (216 residents) received complete WASH.

18 residents gained access to running water.

This is a template page, for future use, to replace the previous page

The WASH recipients

35

The WASH recipients

36

The WASH recipients

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The WASH recipients

38

The WASH recipients

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The WASH recipients - some photos

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The WASH recipients - some photos

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Achmad, put your best photos of people on this page

Report on the SWG installations - 1

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Ensuring local ownership for families

It is key that the local home owner fully understands:

1. the technical & maintenance aspects of the SWG – the men are typically interested in this;
2. the costs: ≈ € 350 materials costs and ≈ € 35 labour fee (payable to the village digger team)
3. the direct economic benefits from crop growth –the women are typically interested in this).

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The appointed WASH trainees explained all this to the home owners (the end-users) and a “contract” was signed (see next slide) to make it formal.

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Conclusion:

The village and SWG teams are fully convinced that the consultations succeeded in ensuring full local understanding, and that the WASH trainees can now train other villages in the region to build the SWGs themselves (who will be using their own village funds to finance the installation).

Here is Pak Jaya (of the SWG team) discussing with the local village teams how the SWG works. All families who received a (shared) SWG got the same instructions, delivered in each village by the newly trained WASH trainees from that village.

Report on the SWG installations -2

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A sample “user contract” on the left; in the photos, villagers are filling in contracts and/or survey forms

Report on the SWG installations - 3

44

From growing chili to micro-farming – and striking a blow for the climate

The SWG team has learned over the last 7 years that the best, easiest and most impactful way to make use of the SWG garden is to grow chili on it. The 2 x 3 meter garden typically fits 12 chili plants, enough to meet the demand on one family, and gives them a sense that achieving food-self-sufficiency is possible (and hence inspire them to do extend into wider micro-farming). To give villagers a quick sense of success, the best is to give them seedling chilis (about 20 cm tall) which will deliver chili within 3 months.

Referring to these slides for details, > 90% of all users declared enthusiastically that they believe they will be successful with growing chili and > 95% said they are interested to extend the chili farming to more general micro-farming – and this is something we can measure in the next 12 months by asking the WASH trainees to run more surveys through the survey app.

Lastly, but very importantly, we learned in April 2023 that the IPCC estimates that a family on safe sanitation is worth 12-15 carbon credits. That means that safe sanitation is a climate project too, which should make it easy to get companies to come on board!

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Ibu Hartini harvests the chili grown in her SWG.

She no longer has to buy chili, Indonesia’s second most important crop (after rice), saving 10% on household expenses

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Report on the SWG installations -4

45

Installation in the 4 schools

We installed SWGs in 4 schools (SD04 + SMP04 in Sentabai main village, SD30 in Kampung Tekalong, and SD20 in Sungai Putat – 112, 30, 63, 90 students respectively). The schools were very supportive of these efforts. The principals and/or lead teachers of the schools were instructed on the science behind the SWG, and its potential to act as a catalyst for food production, and declared themselves enthusiastic to monitor the systems in the months and years to come.

On the right: Pak Jaya discussing the merits of the SWG with the principal, Pak Utin Spd, of school SD 04, Sentabai

The SWGs were coupled to a water supply

Since a SWG needs a water supply to function properly, and in view of the project phase review about water supply in the area, we decided to also give the schools in Sentabai and Tekalong water delivery systems.

Template page,

(to be used in future projects if we also service schools or other public buildings)

Report on Water Supply

46

Of the 58 families that were identified as most in need of WASH, 6 families did not yet have access to running water, so, after consultation with the village leadership, we decided to use the material funds to provide it.

The 3 villages are somewhat unusual in the sense that they live close to a large lake and the local governments have

​

installed some communal towers and some (limited) piping. The families that lived close to the pipes received a water meter and were connected to the grid.

The others built a brand new water tower themselves – a much cheaper and sustainable water provision solution, see the recipient tables for the details.

Report on Washrooms

47

Our surveys identified a total of 38 land-based families on OD (Open Defecation). Each of those families (naturally) did not have a washroom and thus needed to build one, while some of the other families had sub-standard washrooms that had to be renewed or upgraded.

In total, 46 washrooms were built or upgraded for the 58 families identified as most in need to receive WASH. Early in the project, the villagers contracted their own teams (typically from their own village or nearby villages) who agreed to do the washroom projects at material cost (on average Rp 1.9 million ≈ € 130) plus a labour fee of Rp 500,000 ≈ € 35).

Of course, for families who do not have their own washroom, obtaining one is a highlight in their lives, in particular if they go from the lowest category sanitation standard (OD) to the highest category (safe sanitation) – and our user-satisfaction surveys show their delight (refer to this slide)

Report on Kitchen sinks

48

Easily reproducible cost-efficient systems

The project provided long-lasting cost-efficient kitchen sinks (total cost < Rp 450,000 each if produced at scale). 51 such systems were built and installed.

The local community now knows how to work with the long-lasting, easy-to-handle and widely available aluminium alloy called Bajaringan.

Report on Nazava filters - 1

49

Added to every project to complete WASH

Nazava filters are simple and very easy-to-maintain clean water filters produced in Bandung. People can throw dirty water in the top compartment of the filter and a few hours later, they have 17 litres of SNI and W.H.O approved drinking water in the bottom part. The Nazava retail value is typically under €40 and they produce enough clean drinking water to last a family 2 days.

Previous work of the SWG team has revealed that people very quickly come to appreciate these filters as they save time and money in boiling water or procuring so-called “mineral water” (locally filtered water often of questionable quality).

Our local teams –including the new WASH trainees and the woman’ association– introduced the filters to 58 families and a small school, and everyone declared themselves super happy with the systems indeed (refer to the feedback survey slide which shows that the Nazava filter is the second best liked WASH system, right after having your own washroom)

Report on Nazava filters - 2

50

Nazava filter: a winner at schools, community centers and households.

Template page

(in case we the project provides Nazava filters to local schools as well)

Material project costs

51

For future consideration, taking into account that local people have been empowered to construct the various WASH systems themselves, and that village and micro funds should be available to finance the projects, below we list the approximate material costs for each WASH item (confirmed in previous projects and reconfirmed in this project).

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New Toilet/Washroom (per house if needed) < € 160

SWG (for 2 – 3 families if they live close) < € 400

Water tower with pump + taps (for 5 families): < € 400

Rainwater harvesting system (with taps): < € 200

Simple kitchen sink: < € 35

Nazava filter: < € 40

Yearly savings on account of micro-farming ~ € 100 - 600

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This project reconfirmed our hypothesis that it is possible to deliver permanent safe WASH for under € 400 per family on the assumption that on average, an SWG is shared between 2 - 3 houses and a water tower is shared between 3 - 5 houses (all prices inclusive of local labour, and adding around € 160 if the family also needs a new washroom).

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The available village funds are sufficient to pay for sanitation for everyone (and it makes sense to use public funds for sanitation, since our surveys prove conclusively that nobody has safe sanitation (classified as a human right since 2015), while villagers are ready to pay the rest via microloans (see our survey results here), which means that safe WASH for everyone is financially feasible.

Ms Hasnah and daughter standing next to their new kitchen sink.

If villagers get running water from the government, it ends up costing them between € 5 - 15 per month. A traditional septic tank system often cost more than € 500 per family . But at a total cost of under € 400 for lifelong and complete WASH systems (half of which is paid through village funds), villages could pay as little as € 10 in credit per month and be full owners in a few years!

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The curriculum - 1: overview

As a former educator and published school book writer, I am delighted with the first WASH curriculum (WASH 1.0) we developed in this Tauw Foundation project.

We split up the curriculum in 5 chapters:

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1. WASH 1 : Sanitation (SWG)
2. WASH 2: Running water and drinking water
3. WASH+ : Healthy food, micro farming, micro business, micro-loan, community tourism
4. SURVEYS: Running successful census surveys, marketing surveys (testing the interest in microloans) and user-satisfaction/follow-up surveys
5. Regional rollout education

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For all 5 topics, our primary teaching targets was to empower the chosen WASH trainees, the “best and brightest” in each village (two trainees per village) who then would go on and teach their construction teams and the relevant village stakeholders.

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The interactive curriculum produced is marvellous, making national policies and concepts fully digestible to local people, while explaining crystal clear how such national concepts apply to local conditions.

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There is too much material to show in this powerpoint but please see this folder that shows the complete curriculum with bilingual curriculum overviews, lesson materials and exam materials.

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The success of our new curriculum is measured in two ways:

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1. Examination of the WASH trainees
2. Verifying that the WASH trainees transferred the skills successfully to all relevant local stakeholders

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The examination of the WASH trainees was a complete success: the trainees are young and bright and did not only pass the exams (see a sample of the signed certificate on this slide), but immediately showed their skills in practice by teaching the freshly learned WASH curriculum to selected recipients successfully.

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Perhaps the best surprise came from teaching WASH+. Our partner Prof Henky Irawan (one of Indonesia’s top 5 ranked scientists) from Bintan’s university conducted this education (on starting microfarming, healthy food habits and a micro-business) with both the WASH trainers and key members of the Women Associations (WA) in each village.

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The WASH trainees understood everything fabulously, and immediately helped with training the WA (village protocol demands that any education of women must go through the WA). What we discovered is this:

So far, the government has encouraged women (through national policies) to operate shared businesses. However, such shared systems are not successful, as the women made abundantly clear (and this seems to be a rule that holds worldwide – communal or group systems just don’t work).

The wonderful and very uplifting news, however, is that the women we engaged with were very excited with the idea of opening their own businesses. They did not know that they could, and that opening a business can be done online and is free of charge.

The curriculum – 2: WASH⁺

Altogether, every single woman we reached in the program registered her own business, all women (see chart below) and > 90% (!!) of all people we interviewed said they wanted to start their own business, and we got the head of the regional woman association, Ibu Dewi, on board to push women associations in the region to adopt our teaching materials on healthy diets and opening businesses!

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In the months to come, we will monitor whether village women associations are successful in reaching all women in the village, and we will work with them to establish mechanisms to achieve this goal.

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Judging by the results of our surveys, more than 90% of village families report they are interested in starting a micro-business, upon receiving some basic training!

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The WASH trainees started by helping the members of the Women Associations and three days later, on 31 May, we had 13 registrations as per the screenshot on the right.

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You can track the progress in registrations via this live Google Map to see how many families have signed up for micro businesses since we started our WASH+ education¹.

The curriculum – 3: WASH⁺

Prof Henky is in the US during the month of June, but upon his return, or possibly earlier, he will collate the data on uptake of micro-businesses and update this map,

so feel free to check the link from time to time

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The curriculum – 4 (certification)

To make the WASH trainees proud and motivate them even more, we got some highly regarded public VIPs to co-sign the certificate.

The certificate (one in English and one in Indonesian) will be handed over ceremoniously by the regent during the inauguration ceremony. Even though Indonesia as a whole is very advanced in terms of gender equality, in villages women often still hold back. We had one female WASH trainee, however, and everyone is delighted to note that, amongst a very talented crew, she was the best!

Marc please help To Change The Name In Certificate, I can’t do it

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Riza Safrya Hastika

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Feedback form for WASH recipients

English version of the user satisfaction survey questions posed to the WASH recipients

This survey is the source of input for the results on the next pages; the actual survey was taken through our app

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Feedback form for women groups

English version of the survey questions posed to the women of the Woman Associations after conducting the course.

This survey is the source of input for the results on the next pages; the actual survey was taken through our app

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Feedback analysis: WASH recipients

I DON’T LIKE IT / NOT IMPORTANT

I LOVE IT /

VERY IMPORTANT

How important is it for you to have WASH facilities?

98%

LEAST POPULAR SYSTEM

MOST POPULAR SYSTEM

Villagers love WASH

IT’S OK / SOMEWHAT IMPORTANT

I LIKE IT /

IMPORTANT

% shows the average score

% shows number of people voting for the system as their favourite

NOT ADEQUATE

ADEQUATE

Prior to project, how adequate was your WASH?

27%

NOT GREAT BUT OK

Villagers

need WASH

% shows the average score

LET EXTERNAL EXPERT BUILD IT

COMPLETE OWNERSHIP

PARTIAL

OWNERSHIP

Villagers want

ownership over their WASH systems

% shows the average score

NO

YES

Prior to project, how adequate was your WASH?

93 %

Villagers want to grow their own food & open businesses

% shows the average score

93 %

96 %

95 %

Are you confident you can grow chili?

You want to extend to micro-farming?

You want to open your own business?

Demonstrating society’s problems with WASH – and the project’s success in addressing it

(Below are the overall results of the survey amongst all users; for further analysis, see slides overleaf or the full details here)

7%

8%

14%

25%

11%

35%

Feedback analysis: women

On the right, the combined results of the women’s association from all 3 villages in response to questions measuring the success of our WASH+ education. Overall, we got some truly stunning results:

• 97% now understood the importance of plant-based diets
• 100% wanted to start a micro-business (!!)
• 100% felt that all Indonesian women should receive such education and such surveys (!!)
• 100% feels that all Indonesian people should take part in such surveys
• > 60% of the women say that they would like to have a bit of help from the Woman Associations to start their businesses and to learn how to start a micro-farm (especially when the soil is not so good).

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(Below is a summary of the results. For further analysis, see slides overleaf or the full details here)

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Feedback: key testimonials

Pengujan village chief

Mr. Zulfitri

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This program is very good, especially for our Pengujan village community because it helps people who experience difficulties related to sanitation.

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Thanks to all those who contributed, I hope these systems will last a long time.

Some feedback from the village leaders, the WASH trainees, the Women Association & the WASH recipients

Women Association, Pengujan

Ms. Suzila

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My opinion about the WASH⁺ activities is that it is very useful for us, especially for me. I gained a lot of experience during 3 days of this activity.

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I am very happy, I hope the micro-business program will be successful and sustainable. Amen

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Thanks to Mr Henky Irawan, Mr Jaya, Mr Achmad and our younger siblings the new WASH trainers Riza and Hazuar. I hope this event will continue to be a success in the future.

SWG recipient

Mr. Yaqob

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As a family, we received a new Toilet, Kitchen Sink, Nazava and SWG.

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My hope and pray is that this program will continue to grow and be successful for everybody.

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Thank you to all workers and the government who helped my family.

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Mr Yaqob

Local Trainer

Ms. Riza Safriya Hastika

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Extraordinary collaboration from the sponsor (TAUW), the SWG team and the village government to produce activities that are beneficial to the community that deliver safe sanitation systems, and take such good care of the environment and the condition of the underprivileged.

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I hope this program continues to grow and provide more benefits.

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As we learned at the UN Water Conference, there is a huge emphasis on empowering communities by giving them access to high-quality microloans, but once again, the lack of insight through hard data is a major issue.

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We conducted what may well be the world’s first complete census survey on the interest in microloans (all 383 families of Pengujan village were surveyed, see the link to the survey questions and results here) and the result is an eye-opener to the world (and it enables the TF villages to engage autonomously with MFIs in the months to come to negotiate mutually beneficial terms –see next slide):

• almost half of the 92 families without access to running water said they wished to access a € 100 - 300 loan to build a (shared) water tower.
• > 10% said they wanted to borrow money to get a Nazava filter (and this percentage is surely set to rise once people see first-hand how good that filter is)
• > 10% said they wished to borrow money to start a micro-business focusing on micro-farming and tourism services

• 8% said they wished to take out a loan to get an SWG (taking note that the worst-affected families already received one and the demand will surely rise once people know how good the SWG is).
• The total value of loan request exceeds € 25,000 for just one village (€60 on average per family), an amount that shows there is a market, see next slide.

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Feedback on Microloans – there is demand!

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Microloans – there is supply too!

Whereas certain countries, like Nepal, already make high-quality micro-credits easily available for families to procure stand-alone WASH facilities, such WASH microloans do yet officially exist in Indonesia.

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The Indonesian government, however, is very actively promoting micropreneurship by allowing people to register a business free online and by making collateral-free –& often interest-free– micro loans available. Such loans are typically issued by the tens of thousands very local MFI (Micro Finance Institutions) which in turn get cheap loans from the national banks, mostly the BRI bank. As such, the Indonesian government can be expected to be very supportive of WASH loans – and they are: during our August 2022 meeting with Bintan’s governor Roby Kurniawan, Roby said that if the interest in WASH microloans is there, the government will fund the interest payments. Meanwhile, our project partner Asia Affinity connected us –through its partner MICRA – to 3 Bintan MFIs, who are very interested to offer such WASH loans – provided that the volume is there, which we have just proved, loud and clear.

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We believe that our approach –teaching villages villages to do their own WASH and finance it themselves– will open up a huge international market for micro-credit. This project got us to the UN Water conference, where we strengthened bonds with Water.org and Waste.nl/Finish Mondial, two of the world’s best known facilitators of WASH micro-credit. Water.org is now actively considering investing in us through its equity arm WaterEquity, and Valentin Post, CEO of Finish Mondial, is keen on entering Indonesia and joining our project late 2023.

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August 2022: one of the earliest meetings to prepare for the Tauw Foundation project: Jaya, Henky and Marc meeting with Bintan’s regent Roby Kurniawan and all relevant heads of government

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Feedback: overall summary

The project surpassed the expectations for all of us, and our findings will be very welcome news to the government too, who is extremely keen to turn their villages into sustainable communities by empowering them, refer to this 16 May 2023 policy paper issued by the ministry of village development.

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The project showed that people are able to conduct their own high quality surveys (one of the key items the policy paper calls for) and to subsequently act on the data to improve lives. Stunting, poverty eradication and self-sufficiency in terms of micro-businesses are top of the agenda. What our results showed, beyond a doubt, is that villagers are ready to take ownership over their own infrastructure and that they are ready to start businesses and lead healthy lives. Also in terms of finance, our results show that people are fully ready to pay for the necessary upgrades, through the use of village funds and high quality WASH microloans.

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The women associations, which hitherto had a somewhat unclear role in public life, now get a very clear role: villagers (especially women) say loud and clear that they want to take ownership, but they want to have some local support, and no organisation is better placed than the women association in each village to deliver it!

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Scale-up: regional rollout

The ultimate purpose and dream of our MVP (Model Village Program) was to show that it is scalable – because communities themselves can take charge of the rollout. In particular, an MVP such as ours was envisaged to lead a complete regional WASH⁺ rollout, in this case to all of Bintan island.

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The way we figured we can achieve this is as follows:

we invite the governor / regent to a formal closing ceremony where they can shine: while cameras are rolling, they can claim kudos for all the fantastic census data (which they can forward to Jakarta) and for the amazing empowerment of local people.

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We then take them aside and alert them to the fact that they can get data for the whole region simply by pushing all village chiefs (typically ~150 per region) to come to the MVP and learn how to conduct their own data, and to use their existing village funds and microloans to start the WASH revolution in their own village, under tutelage of the newly trained WASH experts at the MVP.

Village chiefs will be very happy with such directives from above because it solves the problem of how to spend the village funds, while knowing that their own people are delighted with the idea of spending public money on WASH (refer to our survey results). In other words, spending money on WASH is a political winner, always important for elected officials such as village chiefs.

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As it happened, the regent and his wife (the deputy head of the provincial budget committee) were ahead of us. Having heard during earlier SWG projects how cheap the Safe Water Garden was (~€ 350), we hear now that they have made available € 350 per family for safe sanitation –whereas we have proved that for € 350 per family, you can even have complete safe WASH systems!

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The governor and his family are visionaries (the governor has presidential ambition) and the banner he issued (see next slide) indicates how he views the Tauw Foundation project: as Indonesia’s first WASH knowledge center!

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So we’re aiming to set the regional rollout in motion!

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The poster we presented at the UN Water Conference

Here is the invitation letter we sent to the Riau governor, his wife (deputy head provincial budget committee and head of women association), and his son (regent of Bintan).

The governor accepted enthusiastically, and invited all of Bintan’s village heads as well.

INDONESIA’S

Inauguration ceremony – 1 (setting it up)

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Event banner designed by government announcing that the Riau governor and his deputy will inaugurate the event.

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“Peresmian, pusat pengetahuan WASH pertama di Indonesia”

The text on the banner means:

“Inauguration of the first WASH knowledge center in Indonesia”

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which signals that the governor fully understands the gravity (and political benefits) of the first MVP, as reflected in his public speech.

Inauguration ceremony – 2 (report on success)

The official ceremony was originally planned to be on 7 June 2023, but it was called off at the last moment because the president, Mr Jokowi, made a surprise visit to Bintan and Singapore on 6 June. It was then held on 20 June instead and the governor, his wife and all relevant heads of district and provincial government attended.

The event lasted 3 hours, 1.5 hour longer than planned, and the governor made some stunning public announcements, essentially announcing the start of the regional rollout (video of his speech is in the dropbox media folder). He further told us he will arrange a special meeting in the next 2 weeks to discuss the rollout below

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0. He said he was delighted to witness the happiness our project had brought to the villages partaking in the MVP

1. He wants to do two more villages in Bintan and then continue to do all of Bintan: our systems are effective, long-lasting and they are very affordable so we should get ready for a massive rollout, he said.

2. He told his heads of government publicly that safe sanitation previously was outside their budget, but with our project it was not, and therefore they should prepare their budgets for next year to incorporate our programs.

3. He said that the SWG will become a standard part of the new houses the government builds in its affordable housing program (!!)

4. He said that every village should have a WASH+ education team like the one we constructed in our first MVP.

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Publicity - 1 (CNA and UN)

We leveraged the Tauw Foundation project to maximum effect to gain publicity. We successfully argued that this project was our first example of a MVP (a Model Village Program), the principal scaling unit in our vision, which proves that our project can scale. This lead to the biggest publicity we could have wished for, from Asia’s biggest news channel (CNA, Channel News Asia) and an exhibit at the UN Water Conference –the first such conference since 1977– where we featured as one of (only!) 6 examples of a scalable WASH innovation:

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• 17 March 2023 Primetime (7PM) CNA documentary from 28:55 – 33:08
• 22-24 March 2023 UN Water Conference, star exhibit
• Governor ceremony, see previous slide.

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Sample photos of the kind of contacts we gained at the UN Water Conference.

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On the left: Sam McGoun, our CFO.

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Right top: King Willem Alexander and yours truly.

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Right bottom: With Pieter Tobing, in charge of investments at Water.org (who is currently exploring ways to come on board as an investor)

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Right: with Mme Bragori Helene Epse Yocolly, head of rural sanitation, Ivory Coast

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Right: With the global leadership of Global Water Partnership, our data partner

Publicity – 2

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We did not just exhibit at the UN Water Conference, we leveraged it to the full:

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11 asset managers reached out as they were interested in funding us, only for us to discover that our “ticketsize” (at € 1.5M) is considered too small. Through the UNWC, we gained a personal audience with Senior Minister Tharman, arguably Singapore’s most popular minister (former finance minister of Singapore) who is now co-chair of the Global commission for the economics of water. Tharman loves the SWG and he put us in touch with Singapore’s largest philanthropic organisation, Temasek Trust, who appears keen on providing the necessary seed funds and R&D funds.

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Meanwhile, the organizers of the UN Water Conference, Henk Ovink and Pieter den Dekker, wrote a glowing letter of recommendation and Pieter is considering joining our organisation full-time in October 2023. Pieter and Henk’s WASH network is unmatched and we have no doubt that things will move quickly: an absolutely stunning consequence of the Tauw Foundation grant

Publicity – 3

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The media and the government did a magnificent job in covering the 20 June 2023 inauguration ceremony. They essentially took all the key points from our presentation and many articles remembered to tank the Tauw Foundation:

Lessons learned

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It was a recurring refrain at the UN Water conference:

Go local, empower communities.

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At Safe Water Gardens –which grew out of LooLa Eco resort, crowned World #1 EcoTourism operator in 2015– we have always believed in empowering local communities (all our resort staff were recruited from the local community).

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But we did not take this belief far enough initially in this project, going along with the prevailing belief that if you talk about big sums of money (to deliver safe WASH to the region or the world), you need to talk to the big guns.

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This was (mostly) wrong:

As it turned out, the source of funding is also local, and we proved that (1) villages are very ready to spend their own funds on safe WASH, and (2) families are very ready to spend their own money on safe WASH⁺ too –if they are given access to micro loans. We also realised that, while our own expert teaching teams are critical to teach the first MVP in each district, they should focus on identifying and empowering a small but passionate local talent team with all the key skills, while empowering the local women associations to convey the important messages of WASH⁺.

The empowerment of the Women Associations is critical since the empowerment of villages runs squarely through the empowerment of its women. No matter how good your (typically young) new WASH trainees are, they will feel it is “wrong to teach their own mothers”, so they feel that instruction of the mothers must come from other mothers, i.e the women associations. So for the next MVP projects, we will get the Women’s Associations on board from the get-go.

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You need some big guns, but you only need them in a limited way: they should bless the project and they should publicly announce that they encourage village chiefs to spend their village funds on WASH⁺ –which both big guns and chiefs are happy to do since they get great political mileage (nationally and locally) for fulfilling critical parts of the national agenda.

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Lastly, there was a bit of an issue with annual budget cycles, and we have learned that for a next MVP, it will be the first thing we settle. We’d say: “we are ready to make your village a regional WASH knowledge center, and it will only cost you half the material cost, but you need to find a way of securing your funds”. We now know that if this is clearly spelled out upfront, there are multiple ways for local village chiefs to secure the necessary funds, and they can and will arrange it very quickly.

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Thanking our sponsors and partners

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Of course, this project would not have been possible without the financial support of the Tauw Foundation – your finance allowed us to start this project and pull in other partners and sponsors, and to grow it into an experiment that is being watched worldwide.

It has been pure joy working with world-renowned NGO GWP SEA (building on their community- powered survey app) as well as with our long-time academic, government and industry partners. Lastly, a very special thanks to WIKA, our most steadfast supporter.

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The lead project sponsors / partners

academic and long-time partners

Government partner

Recommendations

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Tie off loose ends in kampung Jentu

Fixing the issue with the Jentu river pollution is probably very expensive and may not be necessary any longer for the Jentu community, but using Sinarmas weight to help the Jentu community gain access to PLN electricity would gain Sinarmas another big boost of social capital.

Facilitate the availability of WASH micro-financing

Our surveys have shown that village people everywhere would immediately access micro-loans worth up to $ 500 if these were available for WASH assets. This is no surprise because everyone knows that piped water from the government costs $ 5 – 15 per month per family, and it is far better to pay the same amount for just a couple of years and then own your own WASH systems. The Indonesian government is strongly pushing for high-quality micro-loans, but so far, only Water.org facilitated such loans for WASH. But we have found that the MFI industry is very interested in designing such WASH loans, and Sinarmas could gain huge social capital at almost no cost, simply by brokering the MFI infrastructure near its plantations.

Future template

for when we have ESG clients

Appendix: SWG above the water

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There is a solution for safe sanitation for people living above the water:

On the basis of a few test trials, we are very confident that the solution pictured on the right can work,

and we are looking for modest funding (€15K) to equip all remaining households on OD with safe WASH.

The slide below calls for support to (a) prove that this system works, and (b) gain (inter)national certification for it.

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#ChangingLives

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A happy SWG owner, Ibu Iswinarti,

dresses up to pose.

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Courtesy: Musim Mas, whose

donation changed her life

Be part of it

Safe Water Gardens Pte Ltd.

5 Bukit Ayer Molek�Singapore 589700

www.safewatergardens.org�info@safewatergardens.org

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