The Water, Agroforestry, Nutrition and Development Foundation, Inc. is formerly the Local Empowerment Foundation or (LEF).  WAND Foundation, Inc. provides social development initiatives with emphasis on biodiversity, environment and agricultural sector, rural entrepreneurship, peace-building and gender and development. The WAND, Inc. has grown out of a pool of community development workers in Northern and North Central Mindanao truly concerned about the direct link between severe poverty, local resource mismanagement and the absence of lasting peace.   The vision of the WAND is “ empowering local communities so that they are able to contribute fully to the life of the community and live dignified lives.”

WAND Foundation Successfully Showcased Ecosan-based Initiative During the 5th National Organic Agriculture Conference

 The WAND Foundation was invited to attend in the 5th National Organic Conference held in Davao City on October 15-16, 2008. The lead organizers of the conference were the Department of Agriculture and the Go Organic Mindanao (GOM).  The GOM “ is a broad coalition of organic agriculture practitioners and advocates from the ranks of farmers, NGOs, people’s organizations and church-based groups in Mindanao sharing the vision of making the island a leading producer of organic agriculture products while preserving its biodiversity, ensuring food security and providing safe and healthy food at the household level and promoting consumer-producer dialogue and market linkages.”  There were several technical sessions during the 2-day event; a. government policies, threats and opportunities in organic agriculture, b. technical issues and operational standards in organic agriculture, c. engaging the market, linkages and networking with consumers, and, d. alternative farming system and agro-ecologic agriculture.

Our presentation/showcase entitled “ Closing the Loop Between Sanitation, Food Security  and Upland Resource Management” was a goodness-of-fit to the theme expounded during the conference.  Our showcase attracted so much attention because it is the first time for most of the attendees to realize that human excreta can indeed be used as organic fertilizer.  During the conference we displayed our “vermi-ecosan organic soil amendment” and urine fertilizer.  The vermi-ecosan organic soil amendment is already a product of our small vermi-composting plant in Libertad, Misamis Oriental while the urine fertilizer is really urine by one of our presenters diluted in water which demonstrates that urine can immediately be used for the plants! 

One of our partners who supported our attendance to the conference, Arnold Vandenbroeck, the Country Representative of Broederlijk Delen – Belgium has this to say;  ““It was good to see that the WAND booth  attracted good attention from the participants. For some participants I talked with it was their first time to learn about ecosan toilets. So all in all WAND did good promotion work, also about planting trees
and environmental care in general.”  Mr. Vandenbroeck will visit the WAND project areas on October 27-30 to see progress in the field and possibly to write something about WAND in their website.  The Broederlijk Delen-Belgium with co-financing from the Belgian Government, through DGOS (Directoraat Generaal voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking - General Directorate for Development Cooperation) is funding our “Potable Water, Agroforestry, Nutrition and Development (WAND) Project for the Higaonon Tribal Communities and Other Upland Farmers in Northern Mindanao.”  A component of the project for this years’ implementation is the establishment and commissioning of 16 communal ecosan toilets in upland communities in Manticao and Initao, Misamis Oriental.

During the Conference we were able to introduce also the “Arborloo-type” of ecosan toilet and show areas where it is currently being implemented;

Illustration copied from Peter Morgan “Toilets That Make Compost: Low-cost, sanitary toilets that produce valuable compost for crops in an African context. Aquamor: Harare, Zimbabwe, 2007

Arborloo implemented by the WAND Foundation:

  Submitted by Cora Zayas Sayre, WAND Foundation Executive Director