Earth Forever Factsheet

Earth Forever Factsheet

Founded in 1998
WfWP member since 2004
Mission: To promote community sustainable development through proper environmental management, efficient economic practice, social justice.
Focus area: Bulgaria and EECCA region
Level: Local, national and regional
Main themes: Sustainable sanitation, Sustainable wastewater treatment and safe reuse, Water quality, Composting (incl. feces) and safe reuse, Community development, Youth involvement

Milestones

To meet EU water legislation requirements, Bulgaria will make major investments in 15% of its communities. Earth Forever mobilises communities in three municipalities to increase informed decision-making and to ensure safe & sustainable water and sanitation services. Earth Forever’s objectives are: (i) public mobilization of rural communities to stand for their Human Right for Safe Water and Sanitation services, and (ii) enhancing its organizational capacity.

Foreseen follow-up: Closing the sanitation and hygiene gap in Bulgarian Roma communities with emphasis on meeting best the specific needs of women and girls (2015-2016). Early drop out of school among Roma girls to large extent is due to the lack of adequate to their demands school sanitation facilities. While early drop out is valid for both boys and girls, girls suffer the most as with the beginning of puberty at the age of 11-12 they are forced to leave school and get married; consequently this leads to further lack of employment opportunities as grown-up women. This adds to the stigma of being of Roma origin and permanently deprived of social justice. Earth Forever believes that offering adequate sanitation according to their demands and traditions will keep the majority of the girls in school until graduation and give them the chance to have much higher economic and social opportunities and economic sustainability.

WASH – Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene for All
Since 2002 Earth Forever serves? as a regional focal point of the WASH Campaign of Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council for Central and Eastern Europe and Newly Independent States. The campaign is a major tool to put water and sanitation on the top of political agenda, and it was one of the basic focuses of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg 2002.

Developing a Model for Sustainable Water and Waste Management for rural areas in Bulgaria
Earth Forever together with Women in Europe for a Common Future, The Netherlands, and other partners from the Netherlands, Germany and Bulgaria implement this pilot for Bulgaria project aiming to support Bulgarian local authorities to develop principles of multi-stakeholder (democratic) informed demand strategic planning, to be endorsed by the appropriate national authorities as operational guidelines and serve as a tool to make and implement choices for a sustainable management of water and waste streams in rural towns, and to provide environmental protection for urban population and the natural environment. This aspect is extremely important in the context of Bulgarian full EU membership, and the challenges the country is to face in meeting WFD requirements in very short terms.

More information:

Mobilizing Rural Communities for Sustainable River Basin Management, East Aegean River Basin, Bulgaria
Earth Forever website: www.earthforever.org

Earth Forever in cooperation with the Soroptimists produced this video introducing a new project (May 2018): WeWash
(women empowerment through water, sanitation and health).

"We are working in villages, with grand-mothers and Roma communities, to promote good acces to water, and create a space for dialogue related to climate change, and floods that have annihilated the country recently."