A bigger picture
Jack and Mary’s workshop is one part of a bigger story. For years now, our team has been working alongside Vanuatu’s Ministry of Health to help shape how the country handles its waste, village by village, and at the level of national policy.
The compostable toilet sitting in a community by a lagoon. The hand-sewn nappies leaving Jack and Mary’s workshop. A washing machine that does not need power. A government rule that no other country has tried. These are not separate projects. They are all sanitation. They are all about keeping people well in places where the climate, the soil and the water make it hard.
When a government, a community and a small home workshop all line up on the same question, what do we do with our waste, safely, for the long run? That is when real change starts to happen.
Jack and Mary’s workshop
In a village called Pango, on the south coast of Efate Island, there is a small home factory. A couple named Jack and Mary run it. They make washable nappies. They make pads for women. They send them out across the country. The workshop has a name in the local language. It is called Mama’s Laef.
A few years ago, the government of Vanuatu started to look at banning disposable nappies. It is a complex issue. Alternatives are not viable for every community. Their exploration of this ban is a world first.
Around 20,000 babies and toddlers live across the country’s 65 islands. The thrown-away nappies were piling up in the capital, Port Vila. In smaller villages, they were causing problems for community health. In a country that loves its land and its sea, that pile of plastic was not going to work.
In a country that loves its land and its sea, that pile of plastic was not going to work.
Why a nappy is not just a nappy
A nappy ban is not really about nappies. Diarrhoeal disease is one of the biggest killers of children under five in the world. The germs from a baby’s waste, thrown away badly, washed badly, can find their way back into the food and the water.
A clean way to deal with a baby’s waste is one of the most important pieces of preventive medicine a village can have. When a baby stays well, a mother can work. A sibling can go to school. That is why a small decision by a small Pacific country to look at banning disposable nappies is not a small thing at all.
Then everything got harder
The work was set to roll out from late 2019 into 2020. Then two things happened at once. In April 2020, Cyclone Harold tore through the country. More than 159,000 people had their lives turned upside down. A few months later, the pandemic arrived.
A government trying to roll out a world-first plan now had two emergencies on its plate. The timeline slipped. Then it slipped again.
A government trying to roll out a world-first plan now had two emergencies on its plate.
There was one practical concern on top of these challenges. Families need a real alternative. Mary and Jack’s nappies are part of the answer. Made at home in Pango Village. Sent out across the islands. After Cyclone Harold, they were packed into relief kits and sent north to communities that had lost everything.
The other part is harder. Washing reusable nappies takes water. It takes time. It takes power that many villages do not have. So our team, working with the Ministry of Health, has been designing a washing machine that does not need electricity. They call it the Tumble Drum.
Vanuatu’s trial is being watched. Our team has been approached by other organisations interested in the prototype trial. Still working with the Ministry of Health. Still figuring out the Tumble Drum.
None of this happens without your support.
The conversation that started years ago. The trips to Pango Village. The slow design work on a washing machine that runs on hands instead of electricity. That is the work that gifts like yours keep going.
Thank you for being part of something a whole country is trying to do.
WASH
Sanitation
Vanuatu
Environmental