Water Security and Dignified Sanitation in Rural Amazonia Furo Grande, Belem, Brazil

This case study documents experiences from a 10-year project working with a remote island community along the Furo Grande tributary, just off the coast of Belem in the Amazonian region of Brazil. The residents living along Furo Grande experience extreme poverty and social marginalisation, and mainly use latrines which empty directly into the river, or defecate in the forest, which is dangerous particularly for women and girls at night. Successful programme interventions included community engagement and collaborative processes to build trust and relationships with the people, and enable development of designs that respected local cultures, beliefs and routines of the traditional population. Adaptations included development of ecological toilets and rainwater harvesting systems, redesigning the structure to ensure suitability for high tides and flooding, changes to materials, for example the type of wood to prevent rotting, and adaptations to the construction process to utilise local building techniques. Ongoing monitoring enabled challenges to be identified and rectified, and provision of support to communities to strengthen understanding on how to maintain the new facilities.