Grants to make Refugee Camp Toilets Safer for Women and Girls

Deadline: 1-Aug-23

The International Rescue Committee (IRC), a global humanitarian organization that helps people affected by conflict and disaster, has launched a new Challenge to capture new ideas to increase comfort and safety in women’s toilets in refugee camps.

In refugee camps and temporary accommodation across the world, toilets are often unlighted and without proper safety measures. For women and girls who rely upon them, broken locks and a lack of light bring danger and discomfort – especially at night. In emergency settings toilets are also often described as latrines: communal sanitation facilities.

The IRC is looking for ideas around three key categories of a long-term solution:

• Lighting: automatic and dimmable lighting, irremovable, and powered by renewable energy,
• Locking: methods to lock and provide secure, tamper-proof cubicles that offer privacy and comfort,
• Alerting: systems for alerting when toilet is in use and when in need of maintenance.

Your solution should cost significantly less than $20 USD if focusing on one category only, and a maximum of $20 USD if it achieves all three categories.

Features

• This is a Prize Challenge, which has the following features:
  • The best solutions in each category can win prizes from $2,500 to $10,000 USD, as solely determined by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and evaluators. The IRC welcomes solutions that meet all of the categories as well as those that solve part of the wider problem around increasing toilet usage, comfort, and safety among female refugees.
  • The best solutions in a Prize Challenge have the opportunity to win some or all of the award pool of $30,000 USD, as solely determined by the Seeker and evaluators.
  • The IRC may also issue “Honorable Mention” recognitions for notable submissions that are not selected for monetary awards.
  • To receive an award, the Solvers will not have to transfer their exclusive Intellectual Property (IP) rights to the Seeker. Rather, by submitting a proposal, the Solver grants to the Seeker a royalty-free, perpetual, and non-exclusive license to use any information included in this proposal, including for promotional purposes.
  • The IRC will make awarded solutions freely available to other non-profit and for-profit organizations to help improve the state of displacement and refugee camps worldwide.

Requirements

• The IRC is looking for ideas around three key categories of a long-term solution (lighting, locking, and alerting) each with their own prizes if they meet the acceptance criteria. Your solution may address all three of these categories, or you may propose a solution that meets only one of the categories and its requirements. The IRC welcomes proposals to one or more of the three categories, and proposals that embrace innovative integrations across each category are also encouraged.
• IRC are open to new ideas, concepts, your existing solutions or your knowledge about already existing solutions that may be adapted to this humanitarian context if needed.

Acceptance Criteria 

• Lighting – It may be helpful if the system is flexible, to allow the IRC and stakeholders to experiment and adjust to arrive at a solution that is comfortable for the users.
  • Must have:
    • Provide lighting for at least 12 hours.
    • Plug-and-play and/or low maintenance, even for untrained persons.
    • Renewable and independent energy source.
    • Theft-resistant, as far as possible.
    • Robust, weatherproof, and waterproof.
    • Flexible in terms of type of latrine/cubicle design.
    • Meets cost constraints.
• Locking – Improved solutions for making women feel secure when using sanitation facilities will go a long way towards building a greater sense of safety and improved use of facilities by currently underserved populations.
  • Must have:
    • Easy to install and maintain, even for untrained persons.
    • Flexible in terms of door type, material, and construction.
    • Theft-resistant, as far as possible.
    • Meets cost constraints.
• Alerting – Monitoring data will provide the IRC and other stakeholders with the ability to respond rapidly to sanitation issues in camps across the globe. Using occupancy and safety data heatmaps will provide more objective measurements to keep the IRC and other stakeholders more accountable to clients and refugees.
  • Must have:
    • Plug-and-play and easy to manage.
    • Robust, waterproof, and weatherproof.
    • Real time information capture.
    • Flexible in terms of scale.
    • Theft-resistant, as far as possible.
    • Meets cost constraints.
    • Independent power source.

For more information, visit IRC.