ASSOCIATION FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT

Organizational Vision

A combination of astronomical growth rates, crumbling and insufficient colonial era infrastructure, and a lack of government effort has led to serious sanitation and health problems in Mali’s largest cities. With the creation of the Association for the Establishment of the Environment in Mali (AREM), Cheick Amala Taboure has developed a strategy to solve these problems while simultaneously developing the rich social resources within the communities. Behind AREM is the belief that families in poor urban areas need to have the means to deal with waste management, specifically liquid waste management for which no solutions existed. This is a fundamental belief for Cheick and AREM because if waste is not treated or handled properly it creates health problems, especially in overpopulated poor regions, and if poor health conditions persist, development is insurmountable.

Citizen Base Strategy

With the belief that good sanitary and health conditions are fundamental, and knowing that the government was not stepping in to provide those conditions, AREM began a campaign to build septic tanks for households using community relationships and resources. The goal was to make septic tanks available to families, and to provide them with the means to buy them.

The communities organized themselves into civil associations, which monitor the process in supplying a septic tank. Families within the community request septic tanks and AREM builds them with financing from payments of households that are paying off their septic tank. It is a revolving fund. The organization creates payment schedules to help families afford the wells. The households are required to pay, which is fundamental to Cheick who believes, “people you serve have the need and they must repay. You must not doubt this.” If someone does miss a payment, the association chooses two members to visit the home to receive the payment. “There has never been a categorical refusal to pay” because of the relationships that exist within the community. If there is a problem with repayment, the civil association will help create a more appropriate payment schedule.

Community resources other than money are used to improve the conditions in Mali’s cities as well. Many of the communities have large numbers of unemployed youth. AREM has decided to employ them so they can work and train at the same time. AREM employs the youth to build the septic tanks. They use the unemployed youth to dig the wells, putting them to work in their own communities and teaching them skills to use in the future. According to AREM the benefits of the strategy of requiring payment for the services are that paying demonstrates a real need, and through payment, a sense of pride and responsibility for improving the environment is gained. Cheick’s projects are built by the community, funded by the community, and monitored by the community in order to develop the community.

Results

From 1994-1997, together with communities, AREM was able to build over 1000 septic tanks to improve the waste management in the urbanized poor areas of Mali. From 1997 until the present the youth of the communities have built the tanks, allowing community members to take control of all steps of the development process. AREM reaches 200,000 through training and improving the skills within communities. Through the revolving fund approach, and the insistence that the recipients pay for the tanks, communities have learned alternative ways to finance their needs and have benefited from the feeling of accomplishment that comes with making something happen for themselves. The communities that AREM has been able to support have improved health conditions, which will continue as the organization has moved on to another important health concern, latrines.

Read a profile about Cheick Amala Taboure, Ashoka Fellow.