30 HEALTH AND SANITATION
Spirit of collaboration empowers a community
Community Plumbing Challenge 2017( CPC2017) grows in scope and size to benefit Indonesian school and surrounding village.
By Mike Flenniken
Russ Chaney
In the spirit of the sharing of unique experiences that shape the plumbing industries in our respective nations, the following article looks at the retooled Community Plumbing Challenge 2017, which brought improved plumbing and sanitation to an Indonesian village. Written by IAPMO staff writer Mike Flenniken, it is the next in a regular series of similar articles that will run in this magazine.
Teamwork was the name of the game for Community Plumbing Challenge 2017 as, for the first time, all participants in the annual event collaborated as one international team; this time, with the goal to improve the drinking water and sanitation facilities at a public elementary school in Indonesia.
Also, for the first time, CPC2017 was delivered in two parts: Design Week from 31 July to 3 August, and Construction Week from 9 – 15 November. For Design Week, a team of plumbers, plumbing engineers, and architects from Indonesia, India, Australia, and the United States surveyed Sekolah Dasar Negeri( SDN) Cicau 02 in Cicau Village, Cikarang, to come up with a sustainable plan for improving the school’ s water supply, wastewater management, and hand-washing situation. They also presented a series of games and activities to teach the schoolchildren about personal hygiene and hand-washing, demonstrating the link to both plumbing and design.
The Community Plumbing Challenge initiative is led by the International Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Foundation( IWSH), and aims to contribute to improving public health in areas where communities are still threatened by the lack of basic sanitation and safe drinking water systems. The first implementation of the programme took place in India in 2015, and the second in South Africa in 2016.
The CPC2017 organising team consisted of IAPMO / IWSH project managers Grant Stewart of Australia and Seán Kearney of Ireland; IAPMO India project manager Swathi Saralaya; Adrian Welke of Troppo Architects / Healthabitat O / S; and Roy August of PT IAPMO Group Indonesia. Outgoing IWSH managing director Megan Lehtonen attended as the foundation’ s lead representative.
Because the village is located near PT IAPMO Group Indonesia’ s headquarters in Cikarang, the office served as the ideal CPC hub, Kearney said, providing a place to host meetings, store tools and equipment, present training activities for local teachers and members of the international team, and provide suitable workspaces for off-site metal fabrication work and media production.
The office also hosted a press conference on the final day of Construction Week, announcing the formation of a new Indonesian Plumbing Association that included various industry groups and government departments. Ken Wijaya, executive vice-president of IAPMO R & T Lab, and Shirley Dewi, senior vice-president of Quality Assurance and Client Services of IAPMO R & T, were in attendance.
Kearney said that by holding CPC2017 in a neighbouring village, IWSH and PT IAPMO Group Indonesia are now in a position to form long-term relationships that help maintain and develop the project in the surrounding region, in partnership with the newly formed Plumbing Association group.“ All over the world, organisations often run programmes and projects that, once finished, filmed, and photographed, do not last, and fall into disrepair,” Kearney said.“ So often, the necessary skills or understanding to maintain or upgrade newly installed systems haven’ t been exchanged, and this can have an adverse effect that actually creates more problems for local residents, in time.
“ With each Community Plumbing Challenge, we are working hard to keep that training and education aspect front and centre, wherever a project is presented. Following our experience in Indonesia during 2017, we are confident that the programme can grow there in the years ahead, and that the right partners and supporters will be involved that can ensure this sustainability.”
Stewart, who oversaw construction activities on the ground, said feedback from previous Community Plumbing Challenges led to the decision not to have separate national teams, as had previously been the case with CPC2015 and CPC2016.
“ This is a collaboration, not a competition,” he said.“ It’ s working together to exchange skills, essentially, with each other, and with local people, to learn and teach. At the end of the day, it’ s a massive skills exchange.”
For Construction Week, the international team consisted of plumbing professionals— plus trades including bricklaying, welding, and carpentry— from Indonesia, Australia, the United States, and Singapore. The team
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