1. Can you introduce yourself?

My name is Diana Iskreva. I am the Executive Director of Earth Forever. My academic ground is in landscape management (MSc Sofia University), agri-ecology (MSc Sofia University), environmental management control and health (MSc University of Chemistry and Metallurgy, Sofia). I did a long-term post graduate training in Strategic Impact Assessment in Human Ecology (VUB, Brussels). Recently, my personal goal is to become better in sustainable sanitation and I did several long-term and short-term trainings in this aspect in UNESCO-IHE (The Netherlands), in SLU (Sweden), in UMB (Norway), TUHH (Germany).

I am also a national coordinator for the activities of WSSCC in Bulgaria. WSSCC has the mandate of implementing UN policy in water supply and sanitation. I am a member of the Compliance Committee of Water and Health Protocol of UN Water Convention.

2. The Earth Forever foundation exists since September 1998 in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. Tell us more about its purposes, aims, past and future project? How has born the idea about the foundation?

Earth Forever was created to promote sustainable development of communities through proper environmental management, efficient economic practice and social justice. In 1998, we felt that this is an area that has lots of issues we feel responsible to contribute. In 2009, we feel this is an area where we still have a lot of potential and capacity to contribute.

3. What kind of projects do you mainly plan and create? Have you applied in the EU projects` offers? 

We are developing, fund-raising and implementing projects that would bring the communities closer to the dreamed sustainable development: these are mainly projects that improve sanitation and hygiene, but also projects that improve the green areas (parks, playgrounds, etc.) in urban areas. Recently, we are working almost exclusively in rural areas and small villages. Our approach is to work through youth and women groups, local CBOs, and with improved hygiene and sanitation as an entry point for community development and better livelihoods.

For now, we were not very successful in approaching EU funding. Until now, we were applying as a partner with leading partners from old Europe, and up to now we were not successful. European projects are very different in scale and requirements compared to the calls for grants we were able and good in approaching before Bulgaria joint EU. Of course, now our goal is to develop capacity to address the new situation.

4. European Youth Water Parliament and Youth for Water and Democracy in the Europe of Transition are two of your main topics. Tell us about it? How did it start, who takes part in it, how did it develop?

Earth Forever hosted the Youth Water Parliament in 2003, and we naturally devoted it to improved drinking water supply for schools and improved school sanitation in the Europe of Transition. We emphasized on the rope of young people who have to know and stand for their rights. We had 87 participants from 11 countries.

Youth Water Parliaments were initiated in France 9 years ago by Water Solidarity Europe. Earth Forever has taken part in all of these parliaments, and hosted the 4^th one. In October 2010, the 9^th Youth Water Parliament took place in Russia. Earth Forever sent youth water-ambassadors from 2 schools (in Pleven and in Stara Zagora). These are schools where Earth Forever implements activities linked to awareness raising about hygiene, improvement of sanitation infrastructure, mobilizing students and teachers.

5. Who are your international partners and how do you work with them?

We are lucky to be able to collaborate with one of the most respected water and sanitation organizations in the world and in Europe. We work with Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council, and since 2000, Earth Forever has been the regional focal point for CEE and NIS and the focal point for Bulgaria. International Secretarial for Water, Canada and Solidarity Water Europe, France has worked with Earth Forever since 1998, and the Chair of Earth Forever is respectively Co-chair of ISW and Vice-president of SWE.

Earth Forever is an active member of Women for Water Partnership, The Netherlands and Women in Europe for a Common Future, Germany. We are working closely with a number of NGOs in CEE and NIS, and in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Our joint interest is in improvement of sanitation, especially for rural areas. Unfortunately, Bulgarian NGOs are not active in sanitation field. In Bulgaria, we collaborate with NGOs in nature protection field, sustainable tourism, etc.

We have established strategic partnerships with Bulgarian local government and state administration. This year, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and the village school in Hrishteni, Stara Zagora Municipality, we initiated a national round table on school sanitation in Bulgarian villages: status and measures for improvement.

6. I saw that the youth is your main target. Can you tell us in what kind of project do young people take part in? How can the interest of ecology be developed and stimulated in the young mind?

We work with young people for improvement of sanitation. They are very sensitive to poor management of school sanitation, and poor solid waste management. For years, we were organizing clean-up events in city green areas. This is a big effort with absolutely disappointing results in Bulgarian reality. A week after the clean-up events, the places are again spread with plastic bags, raps, bottles, etc. Most of Bulgarian municipalities have very stringent local legislation that involves various types of penalties for irresponsible people who pollute urban environment, incl. parks. And… you can hardly locate a case when this legislation had been enforced.

Since 2000, we are working to mobilize young people from schools to make efforts to improve their school sanitation; to raise their awareness about the importance of good hygienic management and practices; to raise their awareness about their rights to have improved sanitation, better toilets, clean school environment.

Students are very responsive as they are fed-up with the primitive school toilets, lack of hand washing facilities, dirty schools and school-yards. Teachers fully support these efforts.

Our goal is to have clean and safe toilets separately for girls and for boys in each school. Toilets that safely lock from inside. Toilets that protect human dignity and give chance to children to take adequate care about their waste and to clean appropriately after leaving the toilet – the habits their families have built in them but the school toilet environment does not allow them to practice. We stand for adequate handwashing facilities in each toilet and place where children are supposed to eat and drink while in school.

It does not sound like much, at the same time one can hardly find a Bulgarian school where these improved conditions exist and are maintained properly.

We also stand for some ‘luxuries’ like a ‘girls room’ to each 200 girls in school, where girls might wash themselves and change their underwear (in cases of emergency) in periods of menstruation. The law in Bulgaria guarantees this for employees but not for students who spend more and more time in school each year. Official school statistics is silent about the number of absences girls make during their menstruation period due to bad hygiene conditions in schools. Official statistics never mention the number of Roma girls who leave school as soon as their menstruation starts, due to the fact that their families find school toilets unsafe place endangering the dignity of their grown-up girls.

7. Which is your latest project with participation of children? Tell us more about its results.

This was already discussed in one way or another. Our latest project is implemented in 2 high schools in Pleven and Stara Zagora. The name is Healthy School. We are striving all together to create a legislation that will guarantee healthy and hygienic conditions, improved sanitation for the children in school. We have the understanding of all possible institutions but the Ministry of Education. And the Ministry of Education is the main player in educational system of Bulgaria. There is a standard of how many kids would be in 1 class, but there is no standard of how many kids should be able to use 1 toilet cabin for a break of 10 minutes.

We are now starting project in rural schools with the very simple and very responsible goal to train children to practice good personal hygiene. The vast majority of children in rural schools nowadays come from poor Roma families, and the lack of awareness about the importance of hygiene practices among these children is enormous.

8. What kind of eco projects can be offered in the time of international crisis?

What we have been done since 2005 is really good for periods of crisis – for the simple reason that countries in transition has been operating in consecutive crisis situation

year after year. Earth Forever’ main goal is to promote alternative sanitation technologies. These are technologies in between the conventional ones. In Bulgaria, we know for pit latrines and infiltrating septic tanks in rural areas (by the way absolutely excluded by the existing Water Act), and, on the other pole – enormous and very expensive wastewater treatment plants (most of them oversized and poorly operating in Bulgarian conditions). The technologies we promote are in between these: urine directing toilets, composting toilets, waterless urinals; soil and planted filters and constructed wetlands for gray water and wastewater treatment.

In logical connection with this is treatment of biodegradable waste: we promote composting and vermicomposting, and reuse. We promote wise use of water and safe reuse of treated sanitation products in agriculture.

9. What is the worst problem of the climate change according to you?

We are interested in the adaptation mechanisms and approaches, especially those that are linked to water use. All existing serious models of climate change put the Balkans into the area that will have higher average annual temperatures and lower average annual precipitation. In simple language, this means that out hot and dry summers will become longer hotter and drier. Does conventional sanitation offer an adequate answer for this situation? Our decision-makers for some reason continue to go for solutions that use enormous amounts of water. Imagine that each time you use the ‘small flush’ of the toilet, at least 3 litters of POTABLE water run down the sewerage. And how many litters of water each of us drinks today? We continue investing enormous amount of public funds to build very expensive infrastructure to collect, treat and bring potable water to people; they drink 1-2 liters of it, use 10-20 litters to prepare food… and the other one they run through the shower or flush in the toilet. With the conventional sanitation, the enormous amount of consumed ‘potable’ water goes directly in the toilets; billions of EUR are flushed in the toilets... and billions of liters of water with best quality.

Human excreta has to go out of the water cycle; be treated as close as possible to the source of production by natural means, and brought back to the soil and agricultural cycle where it belongs.

10. Are people in general misinformed about the environmental problems and the following consequences?

From sanitation point of view, people are misinformed about environmental problems and their consequences. Even the most expensive conventional sanitation that operates well, according to the expected standards, has not solve 2 most painful issues: what happens with sludge? what happens with pharmaceutical residuals and hormones? In the usual case in Bulgaria, the municipal treatment facilities (if existing at all) operate insufficiently, and they are among the main reasons for eutrophication of natural water bodies; discharge of wastewater increases also the temperature of natural water bodies. As a result, we have damaged habitats and degraded nature.

Poorly treated wastewater poses enormous health risk for drinking water sources and bathing water sources. People generally are not aware that their penetrating septic pit (or neighbor’s pit) pollutes their well in the yard. You cannot imagine how many people in villages drink unchlorinated water from their own wells, and consider it better than tap water. I still cannot explain to myself, why educated and well-to-do people go and bath in the packed seaside resorts knowing fully well that the excreta of all these people around them enters poorly treated in the same sea, not far away from the place where they are all bathing…

11. What is the situation in Bulgaria? Do you think that people don’t care about climate change and its effects?

People generally do not know enough about climate change. Very few have been involved in some awareness raising campaigns, and very, very few have personally done some effort. One of the reasons is that it’s all left just to the media. It is not in school; it is not in public debates; it is not in visible governmental initiatives. All the citizens hear is about mitigation measures, and there is very little an individual in their personal capacity can do about trade of green house gasses, etc.

12. What measures could be taken for the overcoming of the ecoproblems? Are the high-tech green solutions the only way for surmounting it?

Green solutions, yes! 

But green solutions are not only ‘high-tech’. Green solutions are not compulsory expensive. Sometimes, the green solution could be the simplest and the least expensive solution in the world. This is very much valid for sustainable sanitation technologies ad practices: they save money, save nature, protect health, turn waste into resources, reduce water foot of each and every one of us, and improve soil fertility.

  13. What do you think will happen after the next COP meeting in Copenhagen this December? Are you interested to take part in the conference?

I would like to see world going to effective adaptation to climate change. Climate is changing, and this is a fact, we have to become better prepared – both as a society and as individuals.

14. Th!nk about it 2 is a competition on the Climate Change topic, in which nearly 90 bloggers from different countries take part. Do you believe that actions like “Th!nk about it” competition, organized by the European Journalism Center, can attract better the public attention to this hot subject? Can bloggers do the work of media pros and why do you believe that they could be better?

Any initiative of this kind improves the understanding of the issue and brings the humankind closer to the best solutions.

  15. What is your green advice?

We have to become less ‘consumers’ and more ‘citizens’.