Humanitarian Sanitation: Reflections on our visit to Kakuma and Kalobeyei in Kenya

By B. Keith Cole, Leader – Humanitarian & Multilateral Businesses

We recently travelled to the Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement in Kenya. These vast and growing camps are a reflection of the humanitarian challenges facing the global population today, with more people needing humanitarian assistance than at any point since World War 2. In Africa alone, almost 46 million individuals either reside in humanitarian camps or require humanitarian assistance.

Regardless of the cause – whether that may be conflict, climate change, or persecution – in Kalobeyei, more than 200 new individuals are registered per week. This requires sustainable and relentless efforts to keep up with the growing demand for sanitation and hygiene. The need is urgent with Kalobeyei’s reception centre currently operating at more than double capacity. Peace Winds Japan, one of our invaluable partners, has been addressing this challenge through market-based sanitation approaches in Kakuma and Kalobeyei.

One of these approaches includes the development of several one-stop refugee sanitation shops named Duka-Safi. Together we’ve trained more than 120 refugee entrepreneurs who have set up shops and so far sold and installed more than 13,440 SATO Taps, 2,010 SATO Pans, and 565 SATO Stools. Our recent visit to Kakuma and Kalobeyei showcased that this initiative has not only helped more local people gain access to sanitation and hygiene solutions but has helped build a self-reliant, sustainable sanitation market by creating new economic opportunities for the shop’s employees.

At SATO, we are addressing the challenges in humanitarian settings head-on. Leveraging more than a decade’s experience creating innovative and award-winning sanitation solutions, we have developed easy-to-transport, rapid-to-construct and highly durable toilets that address the sanitation needs of displaced populations at an affordable cost.

From the ground up, our humanitarian product portfolio includes:

• The SATO Pan – completely seals open pits, reducing odour and requiring only 1 litre of water per flush
• The SATO Slab – built for humanitarian settings as a quick to install alternative to traditional concrete slabs, mitigating the need for water and labour-intensive construction. The slab has the option to be placed directly on top of a pit or connected to an offset pit
• The SATO Pit Liner – an easy-to-transport, rapid-to-construct pit liner that reinforces the walls of a pit when soil is unstable, minimising the risk of a pit collapsing
• The SATO SuperStructure – a durable, easy-to-assemble toilet shelter that provides a private, safe and dignified area for individual use

Together, these products combine to create a sustainable end to end solution to the growing need for pit latrines. In humanitarian contexts where time and resources are limited, our solutions can be installed in only a matter of hours compared to more traditional labour-intensive concrete pit latrines.

They are also designed to stand the test of time. Not only are they highly durable, they have also been developed in a way that mitigates the sanitation challenges of today and tomorrow. Let’s take water scarcity as one example. Rising population levels in arid environments like Kakuma and Kalobeyei not only add pressure to sanitation systems but demand for clean water too. This forces some families to make the difficult decision to use water for eating and cleaning, or water for sanitation and hygiene.

To minimise this pressure, all our solutions are designed to be highly water efficient and sustainable. Our SATO Pan requires no more than a 1L of water per flush – 80% less than its traditional counterpart – while our award-winning SATO Tap needs just 100ml water per effective handwash. This is particularly powerful for hand hygiene, with those in informal settlements often being at greater risk of cholera and other communicable diseases.

Our trip to Kalobeyei and Kakuma has made us even more inspired and committed to making a difference in humanitarian settings than ever before. Over the last decade, we have played an important role in conflict zones and informal settlements. For instance, in Gaza, we supplied UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders with more than 4,000 handwashing and sanitation kits designed for emergency situations. Each kit included the SATO Tap, Slab, Pan and Pit Liner to create a quick and easy to install bundle for teams on the ground. We are now building on this by partnering with IsraAID and Peace Winds Japan to trial our Slab, Pit Liner, and SuperStructure in Kakuma and Kalobeyei.

As a private social business, we play a unique role in bringing insights and data from the field and translating that into new solutions that ensure we continue improving latrine availability. We remain committed to supporting our humanitarian partners by adapting our solutions to evolving community needs, building a nexus between the development and humanitarian sectors through local markets, and ensuring that products are pre-positioned to enable a fast, reliable emergency response.

With our proven track record, humanitarian expertise and ecosystem of local partnerships, we are fully aligned to driving progress towards this critical goal and ensure we meet the hygiene and sanitation needs of displaced populations faced by current and future humanitarian crises. We want to be the sanitation and hygiene partner of choice for all humanitarian projects. If you are interested to find out more about how we can partner to bring affordable, durable, and rapid-to-construction sanitation and hygiene to your humanitarian project, get in touch.