Image: A Fecal Sludge Management Team member supported by Community Partners International empties a cesspit in Kutupalong Refugee Camp, Bangladesh. (Md. Dipu/CPI)
Community Partners International’s intrepid Fecal Sludge Management team, aka the Sludgebusters, play a vital, if unglamorous, role in keeping latrines safe and hygienic in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.
Each month, these Rohingya volunteers empty thousands of liters of waste from latrine septic tanks and transport it to the waste management facility that Community Partners International supports so that it can be safely treated.
Without these volunteers, latrines would quickly become unusable and dangerous to health, especially in the monsoon season when they can overflow and become a source of deadly water-borne diseases like cholera.
With the COVID-19 pandemic now threatening refugee communities, Community Partners International is stepping up water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) activities in Cox’s Bazar to help safeguard refugee communities.
CPI-supported WASH volunteers distribute hygiene kits to refugee households and regularly disinfect WASH facilities to help prevent COVID-19 infection. They have also installed 150 handwashing stations in and around the refugee camps.
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