Fact File
- Over 2.5 billion people - 1 in 3 of the world’s population - do not have access to adequate sanitation.
- Some 1.1 billion people - about 1 in 6 of the world’s population - do not have access to safe water.
- The average distance women in Africa and Asia walk to collect water, is 6km. On average, the weight they carry is equivalent to a typical airport luggage allowance of 20kg.
- On average, a person in the developing world uses 10 litres of water a day. On average in the United Kingdom, a person uses 135 litres.
- Diarrhoea kills 2 million children every year. That means another child has died from the disease since you’ve been reading this fact file.
It’s a tragic truth. When a major disaster strikes - natural or manmade - it's the world’s poorest and most vulnerable that often bear the brunt. Recent events such as the cyclone in Burma, earthquake in China, civil war in Sierra Leone, and the catastrophic Asian tsunami, affected communities that lacked not only a basic infrastructure, but the skills and knowledge to rebuild.
That’s when organisations such as Loughborough University’s Water, Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC) step in. Their swift intervention, dedication and expertise has helped save hundreds of thousands of lives. Alison Laing met Bob Reed, head of learning and teaching at WEDC, to discuss the vital role they play in international disaster relief.
WEDC is a world-leading education, training, consultancy and research institute. Part of the Department of Civil and Building Engineering, the organisation specialises in improving water supply and sanitation in developing countries. It has grown in both size and reputation since it was first founded back in 1971, and currently boasts a 30-strong team of academic, professional and support staff.
In the aftermath of a disaster, war or civil unrest, WEDC experts provide practical advice and support to humanitarian aid agencies working in the stricken countries. This can be in the form of an actual physical presence, desk-based contact, or via publications and guides on best practice, (researched and published by WEDC), freely available to download from the internet. Their expertise and skills are desperately needed because those who survive the initial devastation, often then face water shortages, pollution, inadequate sanitation, dysentery and diarrhoeal disease.
One such expert is Bob Reed, who studied at Loughborough University in 1977 as a post-graduate and returned again in 1983 as a lecturer in low cost water supplies and sanitation. A former Voluntary Service Overseas volunteer, his work has taken him across the globe to Jamaica, Bangladesh, Northern Iraq, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan. He is a specialist in public health engineering and recently liaised with contacts in the World Health Organisation (WHO) during the Burma crisis. He visited Sir Lanka to help with the relief effort immediately after the tsunami struck in 2004, and is currently working on a national strategy to improve the health and well-being of communities in East Timor, a country emerging from war.
Bob is a man on a mission, fiercely proud of WEDC’s achievements, and motivated by a memory that haunts him to this day. He explained:
“I was working in a refugee camp in Bangladesh in 1976. A woman, clearly distressed, arrived with an unconscious, dehydrated baby in her arms. I was asked to hold the child while medical staff inserted a saline drip. She was tiny, as light as a feather, and she died in my arms. I later discovered she was not a baby at all, but in fact three-years old. She had been starving all her life. That’s why I do what I do. That’s why I want to make a difference.
“In this job you get a true scale of how many poor people there are in the world. About one in six people don’t have access to clean water. Some 2.5 billion worldwide don’t even have a toilet. Because of this, they die. Actually it’s the children who die, more so than the adults. Diarrhoea kills two million children every year.
“At WEDC we provide basic human needs for the poorest elements of society. Despite our high tech age, it’s often low-tech solutions which work best. Building a well wall and cover, prevents debris and animals contaminating the water. A plastic sheet can offer privacy at a public toilet. A rope above a pit latrine ensures the disabled can make use of the facility. That’s what we’re about.
“We can’t make people rich, we can only give them the tools. We keep people alive by teaching them how to use simple bits of kit such as hand pumps and water filters. We aim to empower communities by ensuring they get involved in the design, construction, operation and maintenance of their own water supply and sanitation points.
“Education is fundamental here. There is absolutely no point in doing research if you don’t tell people about it. People don’t have money for books, but there is sometimes access to a computer. We disseminate information on the internet which communities can download for free. We’ve produced around 150 simple, four-page guides with pictures. During the tsunami in 2004, there were in excess of 2,000 downloads of our material. Perhaps tellingly, the most popular leaflet was ‘How to dispose of dead bodies.’”
WEDC’s work is varied and challenging. The team test new ideas in engineering water treatment, run distance-learning postgraduate programmes, and produce books for those involved in planning and implementing programmes. Their research work ranges from the study of specific technical problems to more broad-based investigations in developing countries. They focus on problems faced by policy makers, professionals and the communities and investigate feasible solutions.
In an exciting new development WEDC could become one of a handful of professional ‘hubs’, which would bring together aid agencies and a wealth of expertise from the country’s Higher Education community.
A government-backed consultation is currently taking place for the creation and funding of a ‘one-stop’ scheme, after it was recognised there is no mechanism at a national level to link practitioners in humanitarian agencies with the expertise, skills and knowledge which exists in Higher Education institutions in the UK. Neither is there a definitive list of the expertise on offer.
It’s envisaged that new ‘hubs’ of academic and non academic expertise will be developed, underpinned by membership databases and training. And that the scheme will be supported by a website, open to the Higher Education and humanitarian communities, and packed with practical information and guides, sources of funding, methods of good practice and links to relief news.
Bob said: “It’s still in the early stages but Loughborough University has offered to be one of the hubs, based at the University campus. We are very excited by the prospect and have the full backing of the Vice Chancellor. The hubs would allow access by aid agencies to hundreds of specialists at short notice. During times of disaster and their aftermath, this would save precious hours, and lives.”
Despite these groundbreaking new developments, and the obvious value of WEDC’s world-wide work, Bob admitted the future for such organisations cannot be taken for granted. He explained: “We are self-financing. We receive no core funding from anyone. Similar set-ups at other universities across the UK have been lost. There doesn’t seem to be a role for poverty in these commercially driven times. The work is not cutting-edge science, the sort that makes big headlines. It’s about simple ideas and basic bits of kit.
“Thankfully, we’ve always been supported here at Loughborough University. All the Vice Chancellors, past and present, have taken great interest in our work, recognised its value and have let us get on with it.
“I am so proud of all we’ve done at WEDC down the years to help the really poor, who don’t have a thing. And long may it continue – after all, somebody’s got to look after these people.”
