CAWST is a Canadian charity and licensed not-for-profit professional engineering consultancy founded in 2001 to address the global need for safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene in low- and middle-income countries by developing local knowledge and skills on household solutions people can implement themselves.
Ensuring Water Through Technology
CAWST helps people in need by collaborating with existing organizations to launch, strengthen, or scale up water, sanitation, and hygiene programs using simple, affordable technologies. They transfer knowledge and skills to organizations and individuals by offering workshops, open-content training resources and consulting services.
Through their initiatives, they aim to provide technical training and consulting and act as a centre of expertise in water and sanitation for the poor in developing countries. They envision a world where people have the opportunity to succeed because their essential water and sanitation needs have been met.
Core Strategies
CAWST’s core strategies focus on developing the capacity of local organizations to make their own decisions and meet their communities’ water, sanitation and hygiene needs. Their five core strategies achieve sustained impact at the scale needed.
- Make Water Knowledge Common Knowledge
CAWST believes that anybody, wherever they are, can take responsibility for their water, sanitation, and hygiene with the correct knowledge and skills. They enable individuals to take action in their homes and communities, increase resiliency, and ensure appropriate solutions for the local water environment.
- Build The Capacity Of Public Sector Organizations
Thousands of local groups and governments are most qualified to deliver long-term quality water and sanitation services. CAWST builds the skills and knowledge of water and health practitioners to start, strengthen, and expand their water, sanitation, and hygiene services.
- Start With Household Water Treatment
Water treatment in the house protects people from water-borne diseases quickly. It is simple to run and maintain and is inexpensive enough to reach many unserved people. In addition, household water treatment is an excellent starting point for teaching about health, hygiene, and sanitation.
- Lead With Education And Training
Training that is both relevant and effective inspires independent action. People change their habits when they know that simple solutions to their water, sanitation and hygiene demands exist and learn how to implement them. CAWST training focuses on practical solutions to help people effectively decide how to go forward.
- Identify Barriers To Implementation And Ways To Overcome Them
When people apply what they learn in training to their local context, they frequently require assistance in adapting to and responding to difficulties that develop. CAWST assists people in identifying solutions, improving quality, scaling up, and increasing the efficacy of their initiatives.
Overseeing Growth
The CEO of CAWST, Shauna Curry, joined the organization as a global WASH advisor in 2004. She became head of CAWST’s global training and consulting services in 2005 and assumed her current role in 2011.
Shauna oversaw the growth of CAWST’s service delivery network from two countries to its current network of over 960 organizations in 46 countries. She has worked in 14 developing countries, gaining experience in environmental engineering, and has a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and Bio-resource Engineering from the University of Saskatchewan.
Shauna Curry is an expert in decentralized water and sanitation and capacity building and is a skilled trainer and facilitator.
CAWST was her approach to fulfilling her commitment to addressing major issues at their root. She is fascinated by people, technology, and the human-natural interface and wishes to contribute to developing healthy communities and surroundings.
CAWST educates individuals on how to use basic, low-cost technology to provide clean drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene in their homes. In addition, they offer training workshops on practical solutions like water, sanitation, and hygiene that you can implement immediately.
In addition, CAWST provides access to their resources anytime, anywhere, including education and training resources, technical knowledge bases, webinars, and a WASH eLibrary.
Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology helps you solve project implementation challenges. For more information, visit their website at https://www.cawst.org/.
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