Deadline: August 1 2023, | Grants to make Refugee Camp Toilets Safer for Women and Girls
The International Rescue Committee (IRC), a nonprofit that provides aid to those afflicted by war and natural disasters, has announced a new challenge to gather innovative suggestions for improving the comfort and security of women’s restrooms in refugee camps.
Toilets are frequently unlit and lacking in adequate safety precautions in refugee camps and other temporary housing around the world. Broken locks and a lack of illumination present danger and discomfort for women and girls who depend on them, especially at night. In emergency situations, latrines, or communal sanitary facilities, are frequently used to refer to toilets.
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The IRC is seeking suggestions for a long-term solution in three main categories:
- Illumination that is permanently installed, dimmable, and powered by renewable energy
- Locking: techniques for locking and providing tamper-proof, secure cubicles that offer comfort and privacy,
- Systems for indicating when toilets are being used and when maintenance is required.
- If you only want to address one category, your solution should cost much less than $20 USD, and if you want to address all three categories, it should cost no more than $20 USD.
Features
- This is a Prize Challenge with the qualities listed below:
- The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and evaluators will decide which solutions are the best in each area, and the winners will receive awards ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 USD. The IRC is open to both comprehensive solutions that address every category as well as partial solutions that address the broader issue of boosting bathroom usage, comfort, and safety among female refugees.
- The award pool of $30,000 USD is up for grabs for the finest solutions in a Prize Challenge, as entirely decided by the Seeker and judges.
- The IRC may also give “Honorable Mention” awards to noteworthy submissions that weren’t chosen for cash prizes.
- The Solvers won’t need to provide the Seeker their exclusive Intellectual Property (IP) rights in order to obtain an award. Instead, by submitting a proposal, the Solver hereby provides to the Seeker a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use the information contained in such proposal, including for advertising reasons.
- To help improve the condition of displaced people and refugee camps around the world, the IRC will make solutions that have been granted freely available to other non-profit and for-profit organizations.
Requirements
- Lighting, locking, and alerting are the three main areas of a long-term solution that the IRC is searching for suggestions for, each with its own prizes if it meets the acceptance criteria.
- You can either provide a solution that satisfies the standards of all three of these categories or just one of them. The IRC encourages submissions that embrace creative integrations across all three areas in addition to suggestions that fit into one or more of the three categories.
- IRC are open to new concepts, ideas, current solutions, or knowledge of existing solutions that may, if necessary, be modified for this humanitarian context.
Acceptance Standards
Lighting – A flexible system may be useful to allow the IRC and stakeholders to experiment and make adjustments to find a comfortable solution for the users.
Must-Have:
- Light up the area for at least 12 hours.
- low maintenance or plug-and-play, even for inexperienced people.
- independent and renewable energy source.
- As much as is practicable, theft-resistant.
- sturdy, climate-resistant, and waterproof.
- open to different latrine/cubicle designs.
- meets financial limitations.
- Locking – Improving sanitary facility security for women will significantly increase their sense of safety and encourage better usage of the facilities by underprivileged communities.
Must-Have:
- Even for inexperienced people, installation and maintenance are simple.
- flexible in terms of door style, structure, and material.
- As much as is practicable, theft-resistant.
- meets financial limitations.
- Alerting – Monitoring data will enable the IRC and other stakeholders to take quick action in response to hygienic problems in camps all around the world. In order to hold the IRC and other stakeholders more accountable to clients and refugees, occupancy and safety data heatmaps will provide more unbiased metrics.
Must-Have:
- Easy to operate and plug and play.
- sturdy, watertight, and climate resistant.
- information gathering in real time.
- Scale-neutral in nature.
- As much as is practicable, theft-resistant.
- meets financial limitations.
- source of independent electricity.
Visit IRC – International Rescue Committee official website for further details.
