World Toilet Day: Meet the Sludgebusters!

CPI-supported WASH Volunteers. (CPI)

Community Partners International's intrepid Fecal Sludge Management team, aka the Sludgebusters, play a vital if unglamorous role 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.

A CPI-supported WASH Volunteer empties a latrine septic tank. (CPI)

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.

A CPI-supported WASH Volunteer disinfects latrine. (CPI)

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.

Our WASH volunteers are distributing hygiene kits to refugee households, and are regularly disinfecting WASH facilities to help prevent COVID-19 infection. 

​They have also installed 150 handwashing stations in and around the refugee camps.

A child uses a handwashing station installed with support from CPI. (CPI)