Humanitarian Design

A large number of people are forced into a tight space, having just fled from harm’s way. Stressed, tired, and overcrowded, eventually nature calls and with nothing better than a bucket available, a latrine is established for the group. This seems to work adequately, but only until the bucket overflows onto the ground and ends up contaminating and infecting the whole room via the feet of all present. It seems that although the situation was unfavorable to begin with, it was the fact that the bucket overflowed and kept overflowing that marked the tipping point for sanitary oblivion. Thus, this is a situation where a primary positive action (the designation of the bucket as latrine), turned desperate when the group lost control of managing the secondary, unpleasant, taboo element (the overflowing of the sewage bucket, for which no-one wished to be responsible).

Dr. Bruce Becker’s used this description of the confined roomful of people having to use a bucket as a toilet, and the disastrous consequences of that bucket overflowing for lack of any drainage or disposal system as an insightful analogy into the mechanics of refugee camp life. His presentation of these harsh realities made us all too aware of the fact that we have it really, really good, over here in the relatively stable First World.

In refugee camps, giant, communal latrines generally turn into disaster sites, breeding grounds for disease, and possible areas of contention.

Human ingenuity is generally heightened in situations of duress, but perversely, judiciousness, rationale and foresight often go out the window.

(It may be that dealing with sewage is taboo in parts Africa, as in most of the world. Thus far, it has been practically impossible to receive any opinion on the matter. All I can glean is that it improper to favor the left hand in Muslim societies, as this is the hand used to “cleanse the body”.)

What can be done?
If privies could be set up to service a smaller number of users, it might be that the smaller number would take greater responsibility for the cleanliness of the more intimately shared facility. This follows after the idea of Micro-loans, where a small group of people will accept the loan and vouch for each other, which then ensures that each member is more likely to do right by the pledge, thanks to the dreaded phenomenon of peer pressure. A combination of first phase initiative and second phase management may improve conditions within camps. Becker mentioned the importance of restoring a sense of social order by creating jobs within the camp which would benefit the inhabitants individually, although selectively, but also improve the quality of life of the whole community.

People can, and generally prefer to, help themselves. By designing and distributing products which perform a simple and familiar task without imposing any kind of cultural bias or message, even the most discombobulated individual will be able to obtain ownership of their situation, a sense of control over their fate, and begin on the road to restored peace of mind.