The overall goal of the Sinangpad Healthy Village Project is the reduction of environmentally-related illnesses such as diarrhea, parasitism, etc in poor, remote villages. The aim is to realise this by:

• motivating and enabling community residents to act themselves to make their community healthier by recognizing and reducing health risks arising in their local environment, and
• enhancing the sustainability of community health development through encouraging local government willingness to support community health initiatives and pooling of resources across NGO, Government units and communities.

The most common problems addressed are the need to eliminate open defecation through construction of sanitary toilets, the construction of pig pens to stop pigs roaming freely through the village where little children play on the ground, effective solid waste management, improved drainage and the establishment of backyard vegetable gardens (possible once pigs have been penned). The emphasis is on seeking sustainable, cost-effect solutions that minimize harm, rather than optimal solutions that communities can’t afford to either build or maintain in the future. Once the planning and community organization has been carried out, Sinangpad members visit the community intermittently, and provide ongoing motivation and mentoring.

In the last 10 years, over 60 villages have been involved in the Project, and most are showing some sustained improvements in their local environment. (An assessment is currently being undertaken with respect to the impact on health.)

UCF received an application for a $2,000 AUD grant to be used specifically to enable the purchase of materials necessary for more households, in communities participating in the Sinangpad Healthy Village Project, to construct sanitary toilets, thereby ensuring that in in at least two communities, all households had their own toilet, or shared a toilet with one of their neighbors.