By Madison Moore, Semester at Sea, Spring 2017
Ghana. I don’t know where to start. I could ramble on and on about this beautiful country. There was so much to see and so much to experience. I had the opportunity to visit an organization that is not only a non-profit organization, but a social entrepreneurship.
The Global Sustainable Aid Project (GSAP) strives for a new kind of aid: aid that is sustainable, collaborative, and innovative. They aim “to create programs that foster empowerment, education, and self-sufficiency”. They train individuals for free who are called “Makers” and inform them on how to create toilets. The Makers then sell these toilets to the people in the villages, so they can reduce the amount of bodily fluids or waste that is being released.
The individuals in these villages tend to do their business on the side of the shore and bushes/grass. This has been causing a health risk because some of the feces have worms in them and are causing diseases that are spreading. So, GSAP has created these micro-flush toilets that are to be installed in the houses to encourage the people of the village to use them. It was an interesting presentation. As we left we noticed that a little boy was urinating in the grass after we just saw a very nice toilet that was walking distance away. How could one advertise a toilet, so the people will use it instead of doing their business on the grass?
Learn more about this project from this GSAP video and website.
Video
Website
http://www.globalsustainableaid.org/gsap-microflush-toilets/
