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Knee deep in the …

By Pete Garratt
August 7, 2009 at 9:29 am

… mire! Various other phrases jump to mind to describe the work our sanitation emergency response unit (ERU) do when called to a disaster somewhere in the world, but none seems to, er, stick like this one. The British Red Cross keeps on permanent standby several teams ready to apply their technical skills and this particular team of four have the crucial role of ensuring that disease, one of the potential killers following a large natural disaster, is kept under control through the provision of toilet facilities and education messages on personal hygiene practices.

I was outraged recently when one of my Aussie friends joked about the down under perception of Brits struggling to find the right end of the soap bar when it comes to personal hygiene! So I’m glad I can set him straight on this, not only do we Brits know our way around a good bar of soap, but we also have emergency teams ready and willing to help others round the world!

This week in the disaster relief team we’ve been tracking the progress of a cholera outbreak in Nepal to which our colleagues in the local Nepal Red Cross Society have been responding. Though not yet on a scale comparable to that suffered by tens of thousands in Zimbabwe at the end of last year, it nonetheless reminded me of how we deployed our sanitation ERU to respond.

Equipped with kit, skills and other resources this team is ready to meet the sanitation needs of up to 20,000 people. That’s the equivalent number of people in a full Fulham football ground, my local club, or a packed gig at the O2 Arena. Imagine that you’ve been holding it in until half time or until the last top tune has been belted out – the queue for the loos is pretty dire, right – especially for the ladies! Bad enough, but now imagine what you do when you’ve survived a disaster, found a place to take refuge in but there are no loos? Well, you might make like the proverbial bear and that’s ok for a while, but left uncontrolled and then pretty quickly flies, mosquitoes and vermin such as rats begin to spread disease.

Our team work with local volunteers to put up enough toilets, ideally one per twenty people, and hand washing points, and then liaise with local communities to find ways of disposing of the waste and keeping facilities clean and safe. In addition, they work hard on campaigns to spread basic messages around hand washing, food preparation, water treatment and storage, and sleeping under anti-mosquito nets.

Also this week we’ve been conducting interviews to find the high calibre of person who can join our roster of sanitation engineers and hygiene educators. We have a pool of about 40 experienced men and women, who we have trained, that take it in turns to cover each month of the year. Each year we need to top-up the roster and it’s been great to see enthusiastic applicants keen to join a successful team. In the last 15 months the sanitation ERU has been overseas for eight months, responding to the earthquake in China last May, the cholera in Zimbabwe, and flooding in Namibia earlier this year – this is a resource that is very much in demand. So dear reader, if you know anyone who would be interested in applying, then direct him or her to the British Red Cross jobs link or email recruitment@redcross.org.uk to register, and soon it could be them we’re reading about!

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Tags: China, disaster response, disease, emergency, hygiene promotion, Namibia, sanitation, toilets, zimbabwe

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 9:29 am and is filed under Emergencies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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