Search Website

Illustration of an Arborloo by Tanya Haldipur Project Overview 8 arborloo toilets were built for shared household use for new arrivals in Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Uganda by refugee-led UNIDOS Social Innovation Center, in partnership with Re-Alliance. When full, these portable toilets will be moved for continued use and trees will be planted on the full pits.  The project showed the potential for lower cost arboloos to be rapidly built to respond to influxes of new arrivals. Beyond providing a safe, dignified toilet, arboloos compost wastes in-situ, building soils and feeding sapling trees such as mango, guava or banana, planted above. Because they use shallow pits and are simple to construct, they can be built and maintained by the local community with very low maintenance costs. Because wastes are composted in-situ, there is no secondary handling, reducing risks to health.  UNIDOS trained eight households of new refugee arrivals, all identified as Persons with Special Needs, to construct and maintain the lower-cost arborloo toilets using locally available materials. They continue to support the use and maintenance and will help households move the toilets and plant trees when they are full. What is an Arborloo? Sectional drawing of a relocated arborloo, by Tanya Haldipur The arborloo is a simple, lower-cost toilet that integrates sanitation with tree planting. It is a shallow pit toilet, typically dug to a depth of between 1 and 2 meters which promotes the conditions for composting. When the pit is full, a new pit is dug nearby and the toilet is moved. A tree is planted on the full pit. As a pit toilet, they are not suitable for all locations including areas close to natural water sources and places with rocky ground. Because pits are shallow, they only have the capacity for household, or shared household use, rather than communal latrines as the number of users must be controlled.   The Arborloo Process Construction:  The user first digs a shallow pit. A portable toilet consisting of a ring beam, slab, and superstructure is placed over this pit. Use:  The pit is used as a standard pit latrine. Users are encouraged to cover the excreta with soil, ash, and/or leaves. It is important to train people not to add excess water or put rubbish down the pit. Relocation & Regeneration:  Once the pit is full, typically between 6 and 12 months, the toilet superstructure is moved to a newly dug pit nearby. Planting:  A beneficial tree, such as mango, guava, paw paw, banana, or mulberry, is then planted directly on top of the filled, nutrient-rich pit. The Multiple benefits of Arborloos The Arborloo system turns human waste into compost, allowing the tree roots to tap into the nutrients to boost growth. This process delivers multiple long-term benefits to the community: Paulinho from Unidos and representatives from OPM visit a participant who is using and maintaining the arborloo. The structure is timber and clad with light-weight metal sheeting Sanitation and protection:  Provides immediate, dignified, and safe sanitation. Because the toilets are for households rather than communal latrines, they are closer to where the users live and safer for women and girls. Ecology: Trees stabilise soils, provides shade and cooling, sequester carbon, increases biodiversity. The compost boosts soil health and water-holding capacity.  Resources:  Over time trees can provide food, mulch and coppice materials for households The project successfully built eight arboloo toilets, provided sanitation and maintenance education to the selected households, and will engage households going forward in continued M&E, moving the toilets and tree-planting. Challenges The final report highlighted two primary challenges: High Demand:  The demand for the toilets significantly exceeded the supply. It is important that toilets are not over-used by too many people so padlocks on the outside of the toilets were needed to ensure the toilets were kept for household, rather than communal use.  Higher materials costs:  Seasonal changes led to an increase in the price of construction materials, impacting the initial budget. Despite these challenges, the project demonstrated a successful, replicable model for providing resilient and regenerative solutions to communities by integrating sanitation, hygiene promotion, and tree planting. How much does an Arborloo cost? The Nakivale project used lower-cost, locally sourced materials to maximize the sustainability and replicability of the design. Materials for the superstructure can be varied according to context. The cost of materials and transportation for a single Arboloo toilet  in Nakivale: Item/Material Unit Cost (UGX) Total Cost (UGX) Total USD cost Iron Sheets 24,000 192,000 55 Rebar x 10 35,000 140,000 40 Wood 12,000 84,000 24 Cement 40,000 80,000 23 Wheelbarrow 15,000 60,000 17 Kazao Sand 20,000 60,000 17 Rebar 8 15,000 45,000 13 Nail (roof, wood & sheet) 6,000 30,000 9 Padlock 5,000 5,000 1 Sub-Total (Materials) 696,000 199 Transportation of Materials (per toilet) 80,000 80,000 23 Total Unit Construction Cost  (Materials + Transport) 776,000 UGX 222 USD The total project budget also included crucial non-material expenses, including 580,500 UGX for project training costs, and 1,005,332 UGX for Unidos staff wages.  Resources See more about Unidos' work: https://unidosprojects.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/unidosprojects/ See a short Youtube video featuring the aborloos here: https://youtube.com/shorts/QK4SEjxEpls?feature=shared    Download the one page guide to arborloos here: Read the Re-alliance guide to ecological sanitation here

Re-alliance Co-ordinator Juliet Millican shares her thoughts after a work trip to Ethiopia I have just returned from 2 weeks in Ethiopia, training researchers in participatory research methods and interviewing representatives from government, INGOs and NGOs working in climate and conflict displacement.  The trainee researchers, many from a local university, were informed, enthusiastic and passionate, keen to work closely with local displaced communities to explore their experiences and their challenges. Everyone was aware of the acute situation that much of the world, but fragile states particularly, are facing. Extreme weather events and an increasingly harsh climate are creating more emergencies year on year, adding to the disintegration or breakdown of the temporary structures and facilities put in place to respond. The instability created as a result, fear over access to scarce resources and dissatisfaction with how governments are coping, only leads to further instability, further conflict and still more displacement.  In a country like Ethiopia, where language, cultural and ethnic differences are stark between regions, groups vie with each other for power, and, like in much of Europe, families who have been in a region for several generations are now being told by former neighbours to ‘go home’! Climate emergencies exacerbate conflict; conflict is protracted, migration is increased, temporary camps overflow, services breakdown and people resort to sanitation and hygiene practices that further damage their health and that of their environment. Despite the challenging conditions in which they live and the hostility of hosts, they are left in a state of dependency with few options but to adapt. At the same time those attempting to respond to the crisis are having to do more with less. The dismantling of USAID and the sudden disappearance of many internationally funded NGOs and INGOs from the sector have left those who are still working within it struggling to cope. Government officials are stuck in emergency response mode, asking for more of everything in order to keep going. In Ethiopia’s case, this is more money, more land, more tents, more latrines, more trucks to de-sludge latrines and more imported food. But it’s never enough and communities become disdainful of what the government is doing, and conflict further increases. Those officials tasked with humanitarian response cry ‘but we were only mandated to save lives, not to sustain them over longer periods, these structures weren’t built to last!’.  The old system cannot work within the new world order, and the sector, and the way in which migration is managed, has to change.  INGOs are exploring new and innovative ideas that involve bringing different sectors together in response. Partnerships with local universities and funding for research rather than emergency response can unlock new technologies that reuse the waste created by large groups of people in one space. Whether solid waste, food waste, or human waste, they are looking to recycle or compost these and to put their value back into the market or the soil. NGOs are experimenting with water retention and water capture, urine diversion toilets and grey water use, and have had some success in improving environmental conditions and supporting groups to grow food. But these approaches need investment to test and to spread, and people need to be encouraged to accept and to use them rather than waiting for more support from outside.  It is not difficult to see how a range of factors are colliding into a complex system in a state of crisis, with only a few pockets of hope. While there is no single easy solution, shifting one element in a system can eventually shift the whole. What won’t help is vainly working to keep the system functioning in the way it always has done, when it is already at breaking point.  Elements that desperately need shifting include: Dependency, and the expectation that the solution comes from outside Globally the political will is no longer there, and the damage created to human and environmental health by bringing in rather than developing within has become obvious. People need more control over their own solutions, and external support can plan for this, by designing emergency response in a way that rapidly begins to shift power and responsibility and involve those displaced in the response.  Working with environments rather than against them. ‘ Don’t push the river’ is a phrase I have grown up with, look for the flow and go with it. This often applies literally as well as metaphorically. Supporting what people can do, looking at what people want to do, and moving with rather than against environmental conditions. Water retention landscapes are essential to raise the water table so that land can recover, food can grow and water can be pumped from wells. Assessing and understanding the land and putting strategies in place before emergencies occur can offer alternatives to, for example, temporary concreted latrines in areas that flood and break or overflow in rains.   Building partnership with local structures and systems and working across sectors rather than only seeking expertise within them . Partnerships with local universities, working with young and enthusiastic researchers like I have done here, or experienced and knowledgeable academics, who know their people and their context and are keen to experiment, can bring new technologies adapted to context, if they have the funds for research. Partnerships with local private sector organisations,  who see the business potential of some of these technologies, can generate small livelihoods for the people who implement them, in selling food, collecting waste, making compost or saving seeds.  Planning for the unexpected and for the long term and investing in longer term solutions.   The unexpected is no longer unexpected, while we don’t know what will happen when, we do know things will be unstable for the foreseeable future, and emergencies develop rapidly into long-term and protracted crises. Building shelters from locally-sourced durable materials rather than using plastic tents that will break down and infiltrate the soil reduces the damage and waste from short-term fixes.  Introducing reusable elements into rapid construction processes enables temporary shelters to be converted into longer-term structures over time and means an emergency response can evolve into a resilient settlement that benefits people and the environment.  Re-alliance does some of this work and is a tiny part of a growing movement that recognises the need for systems change. Like the Sphere guide to Nature Based Solutions in Humanitarian response, and growing numbers of visionary practitioners in communities, in some INGOs and in academia, they are together creating pockets of hope. Although we won’t find all the answers on our own, we feel at least we are assembling the right partners, having the right conversations and shifting some of these moving pieces in the right direction.  Join us, as members, funders, or advocates and become part of the conversation.

A statement on this week's UN Environment Programmes Emissions Gap Report ahead of COP30 We want to start this statement by saying that there is hope. It’s easy to feel disheartened, and it’s also easy for writers to fall into the doomscrolling traps that make our readers feel shocked and scared for the sake of a clickable headline. Yes, we are in a dire place, but that doesn’t mean we should sit back and let corporate greed in the minority world ruin us all. We can take action. Hold on to your optimism as you read the latest UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report . This week’s report   marks ten years since the Paris Agreement and delivers a very frank warning. While the last ten years has seen a solid uptake of seemingly positive policies from nations around the world, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise, reaching a record 57.7 gigatonnes of CO₂ equivalent in 2024 . Current policies and practices put the planet on course for around 2.8 °C of warming . The report highlights that 1.5 °C of warming will almost certainly be exceeded within the next decade , if indeed we have not already passed this threshold. Oxfam’s new report titled Climate Plunder  highlights how the majority of these emissions are caused by a small group of people in the Global North. A single billionaire emits as much emissions as the entire population of many countries. At the same time, many billionaires and their companies lobby policymakers to protect their polluting interests at the expense of progressive climate policies. This greed, very literally, costs lives. Politics tends to be innately slow. Sometimes, this is rightfully so because, of course, policies need to go through a consultation period and be reviewed and iterated on by a wide number of people with a high level of expertise in the subject. However, we often see how policies are undermined because of corporate interests. Climate policies move at a disproportionately slow rate, and at previous climate conferences like COP we see that climate goals gradually weaken throughout the drafting process after interventions by fossil fuel lobbyists. We acknowledge and applaud the meaningful steps forward toward climate action, but these steps are far too slow and too shallow. Every moment of inaction or weak action locks in further harm for people, non-human animals and ecosystems, especially in the Global South. Many communities are already facing climate-induced disasters and displacement. But we don’t need to wait for the political needle to shift. Communities around the world are already transforming their eco-social landscapes through regenerative design. The wild, natural world is filled with learnings on how we can meet our human needs while also living in partnership with thriving, healthy ecosystems. We need politicians and policymakers who are Permaculture Designers, Agroecologists, Regenerative thinkers, and implementers of Nature-based Solutions. As practitioners in Regenerative movements, let’s educate them at every possible opportunity. But while they are learning, let us stand in solidarity with each other, and learn from one another’s wisdom. Let us tend to our own communities, locally and internationally, to grow resilience from the group up. We can’t wait, and we don’t need to wait. Signed, Re-Alliance members

The Regenerative Refugee Settlement project in Nakivale is led by YICE, our partner in Uganda, under the guidance of their director Noah Ssempijja, alongside a team from Arup as advisors . The project is based on 3 acres of land within the Rubondo zone of Nakivale Refugee Settlement where 20 refugee households will take part in a participatory design for a regenerative settlement on the site together with YICE. After designing the site, householders will help to build their homes and gardens and live together in their ‘village’. When I first spoke to Noah about the possibilities for developing this, more than a year ago now, he went away to consider what a regenerative settlement might look like. He came back with details of Blueprint200, a project with a similar aim to be built in Portugal in 2018. For us at Re-Alliance it was an amazing synchronicity to see this. We didn’t know this material was even accessible on the internet but the project, and the work behind it, was intricately connected with the founding of Re-Alliance in 2019. Blueprint, a loose collaboration of friends who were all involved in different ways in regenerative technologies, was established after the death of one of their group, Paulo Mellett, in 2014. Paulo, a strong advocate for permaculture, ecology and equality died after an illness contracted in Ghana, and his friends came together to continue his work. Blueprint was an opportunity to trial some of these technologies in action, and after acquiring land on the site of Tamera, a community in Portugal, they planned to build a model site educating on alternative solutions for displaced people. They wrote at the time: ‘We are at the confluence of resource depletion, climate instability and economic inequality where we all need solutions for regenerative living. The global refugee situation offers a chance to direct the potential of these solutions towards this pressure point of our time; serving some of the people most in need today. Our project will build an inspiring demonstration and training center in Tamera in the form of a temporary settlement for 200 people. This will serve as an evolving model for regenerative design which fosters trust and restores the surrounding landscape. The design integrates the elements of water, energy, shelter, food and social cohesion which can be used in emergency responses. Those who stay in, visit and study the model will gain a new perspective, in a way that continuously influences camp designs, standards, and policies for displaced people and refugees’. Between 2016 and 2018 they developed a series of Pattern Cards, based on a Regenerative Continuum and a set of ‘Contradictions’. This provided a toolkit for decision making on how to integrate water, shelter, energy, food and social cohesion into a humanitarian aid context to ensure protection & safeguarding as well as a harmonious sense of wellbeing.  The cards were developed, the site acquired, research was undertaken in Algeria and initial earthworks were started on site. Sadly, planning regulations in Portugal prevented the project from finally coming to fruition.  Re-Alliance was formed in 2019 to further continue that work. As a registered charity with dedicated resources it was led partly by members of Paulo’s family and included some of the original Blueprint network. It shares similar aims, of developing, piloting in situ and sharing knowledge to support communities in building their own solutions. Over the past six years we have partnered with members to implement 16 individual pilots, shared learnings from these via multiple booklets, videos, podcasts and webinars, and looked more closely at the different guidelines that exist around settlement design and regenerative or nature-based solutions. Deciding to bring these together in an integrated, closed-loop system for 20 families, around 150 people, is the culmination of this work. We’re also happy to be working with Arup who bring an expertise in design, consulting, and planning of projects of significant scale. Collaborative mapping with the participants in Rubondo My first conversation about this with Noah and his own discovery of the Blueprint materials brings us full circle, as we move forward with these guidelines and all those acquired since to design this with the people who will live there. While the setbacks of the Blueprint 200 project seemed frustrating at the time, the project in Nakivale goes further to empower the people most effected by displacement in their own recovery and is a more appropriate context for this community-driven design project. The first workshops have shown already the incredible possibilities when people are empowered to design for themselves.

The Himalayan Permaculture Centre (HPC) is a grass roots non-government organisation set up by trained and motivated farmers from Surkhet district in Mid-Western Nepal in 2010 to implement sustainable rural development programs in Nepal. The Farmers' Handbook HPC staff have years of experience working in remote mountainous regions leading to the development of a wide range of appropriate technologies and approaches aimed at increasing domestic farm productivity while reducing costs. Concrete and positive outcomes, such as a measured increase in crop production, vegetable consumption, and reduction in firewood use have been demonstrated. These techniques are published in the “Farmers’ Handbook” which is also used for practical literacy education. It was published in the Nepali language by co-creators Chris Evans and Jakob Jespersen in 2001 (7,500 copies) with reprints in 2012 and 2018 (1,500 copies respectively). In 2002 the handbook was translated into English and in 2009 made available as free PDF downloads . The handbook is 50 chapters in 5 volumes – a total of 792 pages, including 170 pages of colour photos and illustrations. Above: Farmers are taught how to make a hot bed that protects seedlings BACKGROUND In Nepal, According to a Food Security Assessment carried out by the FAO , agriculture provides livelihoods for more than 80% of the population and accounts for some 40% of its Gross Domestic Product. Rising population and inappropriate foreign aid programmes, which often try to replace traditional practices, have combined to undermine the sustainability of traditional agriculture. The result is a disempowered people with unequal access to basic needs, struggling to grow enough food to last the year despite working all hours. The proportion of undernourished population is estimated at 40.7%, in the Terai where on average 17.7% of children under five suffer acute malnutrition. These communities can be seen as "marginal”, lacking access to key resources such as education, health care, food security and credit. At the same time the physical areas where they live can also be described as being marginal due to the high altitude combined with poor infrastructure of roads, power and communications. These are the people and places where HPC has prioritised its work, where small inputs of appropriate technology and appropriate education can make huge differences. Subsistence agricultural practices have developed by HPC to be finely in tune with local climate, landscape and people's needs. HPC practices are intimately interwoven with the forest and other natural resources to provide basic needs of food, fuel, fodder, timber and medicines. HPC has 178 demonstration farmers in 32 villages, known as “Barefoot Consultants” to easily disseminate working agricultural processes. HPC work has resulted in 387 kitchen gardens, planting over 51,000 fruit trees and planting over 50,000 multi-purpose trees and shrubs in agroforestry plots as well as the development of 726 smokeless stoves. Furthermore, 81 farmers have implemented SRI, (System of Rice Intensification.) This method of rice farming aims to increase yield of crop while reducing both labour and water use. The Farmers Handbook has helped in the training of over 7,000 farmers in agro-ecological practices including vegetable growing, composting, pest management, green manures, agroforestry, SRI, water management. The HPC's work centres around 3 main strategies: Training and Education: Assisting farmers and development workers in the process of design and implementation of demonstrated sustainable agriculture systems and agro-ecological approaches. Resources: The seed, seedlings and published information (books, booklets, posters) needed for farmers and development workers to design and implement such systems on their own land and in their communities. Research: This is implemented to identify useful new species and cropping patterns, or combinations of those existing traditionally, which are favoured and can be appropriated by local farmers for their own use. HPC carries out demonstration, training, resource production and research on its own resource centres (working farms) in Kathmandu, Surkhet and Humla districts. It also carries out these activities on farmers own land, though the research needs to be risk-free otherwise they may lose valuable food crops or land if experiments don't work. In addition to its farming-related activities HPC also works in the health, education (schools and adult literacy) and livelihood sectors because of their connection with its agro-ecological strategies. Participants on a farmers training session learn how to plant fruit trees WHAT MAKES THIS REGENERATIVE? IMPACT ON PLANET Increase in biodiversity and soil health. Decrease in pressure on forest areas. Regeneration of degraded areas around and within villages. Planting of over 51,000 fruit trees and over 50,000 multi-purpose trees and shrubs planted in agroforestry plots. 81 Farmers implementing SRI. IMPACT ON PEOPLE Increase in on-farm and domestic productivity. Decrease in labour and resource cost. Recognition of local culture, skills, technology and biodiversity. Increasing awareness of local issues of gender imbalance/women's health, local regenerative economies. Awareness of global issues of trade, climate change and justice As it is published in the Nepali language, the Farmers’ Handbook is used for practical literacy education. COMBINED REGENERATIVE IMPACT Demonstrations and training resources provided so that local people can see techniques and approaches that meet holistic goals and further receive training on how to design and implement in own communities. Using Permaculture design and integrating issues such as food production/agriculture, health, education and livelihoods then settlements are designed that reduce the need to leave communities for work/income elsewhere. Replicability: Following a farmers training session, a farmer from outside HPC's working member villages establishes a root stock nursery at his home, demonstrating the spread of HPC's activities. SCALABILITY AND REPLICABILITY HPC works directly in 32 villages (over 5000 beneficiaries) but as farmer-to-farmer contact spreads it's techniques way beyond this there are many other areas. The Farmers Handbook is a step by step guide in many agriculture processes that although are specifically tailored for Himalayan Conditions, the ideas in this comprehensive document can be adjusted for other agro-ecological environments. WHAT'S NEXT FOR THIS PROJECT? HPC wants to reduce its need for external funding by developing internal/local resilience through processing, marketing and fair trade for local, national and international trade. It will continue to offer increased resources for other organisations/communities through its barefoot consultants program. CONTACT THE HIMALAYAN PERMACULTURE CENTRE The Himalayan Permaculture Centre (HPC) is a grassroots regenerative NGO based in Nepal with a focus on rural development. Website | Facebook | Download The Farmer's Handbook CONTACT US If you would like to join our network of regenerative practitioners, contact us here .

If you’re reading this article, no doubt you already know that humans need to radically transform the way global food systems operate. The climate crisis is accelerating faster than many scientists and activists anticipated. The way that humans grow, source, transport (and waste) food is estimated to contribute to around 25% of all the world’s human-caused Greenhouse Gas Emissions, indeed with animal agriculture being the bulk of that figure (IPCC ‘Climate Change and Land’) . At the same time, conventional agriculture is stripping soils of nutrients, and ecosystem destruction means that it’s harder for landscapes to naturally bounce-back from shocks like extreme weather events. But what’s the alternative? In this article, we’ll explore how perennial food systems can be one antidote to destructive food production practices. We’ll explore some scientific research, while also asking a Permaculture practitioner for some advice for refugee-led community groups - what can we do right now to integrate perennial growing practices? Across increasingly climate-stressed and degraded landscapes, food forests offer a proven way to rebuild soils, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Research is increasingly showing that integrating trees with food production enhances multiple ecosystem services at once: soil carbon, water regulation, pollinator habitat, microclimate buffering, and often farm-level resilience and incomes (Matieu, A. et al. 2025) . Annual plants grown in monoculture often rely on digging and tilling, as well as heavy chemical inputs, massively diminishing soil and biodiversity health. Perennial systems, by contrast, focus on building soil. They cycle carbon through living roots and soil, protecting and feeding soil life. Recent syntheses find agroforestry raises soil organic carbon by around 10% on average compared with other land uses. Biodiversity, nutrient retention and erosion control rises consistently on regenerative farms (Pan, J. et al. 2023) . What could this mean in a displacement context? Historically, refugee communities have been offered staples such as rice or grains as part of their support packages. These are mostly annual crops from cereals and oilseeds. But a transition toward regionally adapted, local and culturally appropriate perennial staples like nuts, starchy fruits, hardy tubers, and protein-rich tree crops can diversify diets, increase nutrition, and reduce (or eliminate) degenerative food growing practices. Academic reviews catalog dozens of perennial staple species with great nutrient density and storability which could offer viable alternatives to annuals (eg. Kreitzman, M et al. 2020) . But we shouldn’t just aim to replicate a conventional farming system, simply with perennials like trees instead of annuals. This transition must be designed in a way that incorporates local and indigenous wisdom, native species of crops, and biodiversity. We need nature-inspired farming practices that integrate a richness of diversity, integrate traditional ecological knowledge, store and sink water in healthy hydrological cycles, and create habitats for wildlife. Imagine this: luscious green forests with layered canopies, year-round ground cover, living mulches, and mixed perennials. This could be our food system, and rich examples of this are emerging across the globe. Indeed, indigenous and land-based communities are stewarding unbroken examples of food forestry. Can food forestry work in displacement settings? In short, yes, especially if designed collaboratively and with maintenance in mind. Perennial planting can take careful maintenance like regular watering in dry climates in the first few years of planting, and there can also be a transition period where there is a lower crop harvest in the first few seasons. Host and refugee communities should be consulted in the process to make these spaces as relevant and useful for all communities, and careful planning and governance needs to be considered. Who will water? Who will prune? Who will make sure wild grazing animals are not eating all the saplings? Currently there are a number of barriers to growing perennials in many displacement contexts. In some countries this includes laws or customs which forbid or limit any kind of planting or building which could imply that refugees are settling permanently. Here and more widely, we need a change in policy away from an emphasis on conventional, degenerative farming, stopping government subsidies toward destructive agricultural practices like chemical inputs, and supporting farmers to transition toward regenerative farming. Edible mushrooms should be integrated, cultivated on prunings, woodchips, or agroforestry by-products, to turn “waste” into nutrient-dense food and income, while contributing to soil structure. Quick-growing crops like mushrooms can also support the transition period where, in the first few years, there may be a small drop in farmland productivity as the system establishes. Managed coppice and fast-growing woodlots can supply some fuel from pruned branches, but clean-cooking transitions are critical for health, safety, and forest protection. Pilots with solar cookers offer a clean and climate-friendly solution where sunlight and cooking practices align (UNHCR 2021) . There’s no need to wait. You can start now! Permaculture teacher and Re-Alliance Correspondent Ansiima Casinga Rolande gives advice to land-based practitioners. Mulch. Never leave the soil bare.  Keep soils covered with ground-cover plants or leaves, prunings, and crop residues to feed microbes, retain moisture, and reduce weeding. Plant ‘chop-and-drop’ plants like legumes that fix nitrogen. Plant in layers and think in guilds.  Combine large canopy trees like nuts or fruit trees, sub-canopy shrubs like berries, vines, herbaceous perennials, ground-covers, and root crops. Making plant ‘guilds’ means choosing plants that work together and contribute to the whole farm system. Plan across time and usage.  Think about when you would harvest the crops so that you always have nutritious foods to eat, or how you might save and preserve heavy-croppers like nuts. If possible, you’ll always want to have a diversity of crops ready to harvest at once: some for eating fresh, some for preserving, and some for trading, sharing or selling. Integrate plants as natural fertilisers.  Some plants are valuable for their fertile-rich composition, meaning that they can be integrated into your farm ecosystem to be used in compost-teas and organic fertiliser liquids. Many of these plants you can also simply ‘chop-and-drop’ to create biodegradable, high-nutrient mulches. Integrate mushrooms.  Inoculate woodchips or logs from pruning and start with reliable oyster or shiitake varieties, but try to find local edible varieties. Consider cash crops.  You may want to integrate plants that you can harvest for their high value, for trading, sharing or selling. For example, integrating coffee into a biodiverse food forest is a great way to have tradable produce, and good chop-and-drop biomass from pruning the branches. Moving from annual monocultures toward biodiversity-rich food forestry will not replace destructive practices overnight. But the evidence is strong that even partial transitions like hedgerows, living fences, alley cropping, small food forests, and communal gardens can deliver measurable climate, soil, and livelihood benefits now, while opening pathways to wider cultural changes in the future. This is regeneration we can start today.

The Role of Youth in Regeneration Across the world, young people are confronting the impacts of climate change, environmental degradation, and displacement. Yet despite being among the most affected, youth are often left out of decisions about the future. At Re-Alliance, we believe young people are not just the future - they are already leading regenerative action today. From restoring water systems and growing food sovereignty to reviving traditional knowledge and organising grassroots movements, youth are at the heart of eco-social regeneration. What’s often missing is support: access to tools, training, networks and opportunities to connect with others doing similar work across regions and cultures. Practical demonstrations at the National PermaYouth Camp, Timor-Leste October 2024 That’s why we’re excited to spotlight the upcoming International PermaYouth Convergence (IPYC–2025) - a global gathering rooted in a powerful youth-led model developed in Timor-Leste by Timorese NGO Permatil (Permaculture Timor-Lorosa’e). Introducing the International PermaYouth Convergence (IPYC–2025) From 20-25 October 2025, youth (aged 17-35) and community leaders from six continents will come together in Ermera, Timor-Leste, for six days of permaculture learning, leadership training, and cultural exchange. The convergence, hosted by Permatil (Timor-Leste) , partner organisation Permatil Global (Australia) , and the newly formed PermaYouth Association of Timor-Leste, will share the successful PermaYouth camp model - which has empowered thousands of youth in Timor-Leste - with the world. The theme of the event, “Planting Water, Growing Communities,” focuses on regenerating ecosystems, applying permaculture approaches and strengthening community resilience through practical, nature-based action. Participants observing an activity at the National PermaYouth Camp, Timor-Leste October 2024    Learn more and register your interest here The PermaYouth Model Since 2008, Permatil has run over 15 regional and national PermaYouth camps, reaching more than 6,500 young people across Timor-Leste. These camps combine permaculture, agroecology, and traditional knowledge with youth empowerment, gender inclusion, and leadership development. Participants learn by doing, gaining skills in: Water harvesting and watershed regeneration Agroforestry and sloping agriculture Community organising and ecological sanitation Cultural preservation and indigenous food systems Camps are inclusive and participatory, prioritising involvement from young women, LGBTQIA+ youth, people with disabilities, and other often-marginalised groups. Many past participants now lead their own projects or play a role in the national PermaYouth Association, which will co-lead the IPYC–2025 and help support future participants as they return home to share what they’ve learned. PermaYouth Camp participants  A Living Laboratory of Regeneration Participants in the convergence will visit Permatil’s demonstration site in Fatuquero, where water management and ecological restoration have transformed degraded land into a thriving community asset. Their “Planting Water” approach has recharged over 20 million litres of groundwater across Timor-Leste, restored springs, improved crop yields, and helped secure year-round food and water access. The site also serves as a platform for innovation, knowledge sharing, and lifelong learning. The convergence will combine this hands-on training with a nightly cultural and music festival, featuring traditional and contemporary performances from Timor-Leste and around the world - a celebration of identity, resilience, and connection. Participants perform at the National PermaYouth Camp evening events  Why It Matters: Relevance to Re-Alliance and the Sector The IPYC–2025 speaks directly to Re-Alliance’s mission: to amplify and scale community-led regenerative approaches in humanitarian and development contexts. It offers a model for how to: Centre youth in resilience-building and regeneration Share knowledge and practices across Global South regions Build long-term capacity rooted in local culture and ecosystems Shift power and resources to grassroots actors The convergence will also launch the International PermaYouth Network (IPYN) - a global alliance of young leaders working to implement permaculture, build eco-social resilience, and support each other across borders. How to Get Involved: Become a Champion Permatil and Permatil Global are inviting Champions from around the world - community organisers, educators, activists, and allies - to help share the opportunity and support local youth to participate. Champions help by: Disseminating event info and encouraging youth participation Supporting delegations with coordination and funding access Acting as local points of contact between communities and organisers You don’t need to attend to be involved. Champion Kits and briefings are available to support your role. More info and Champion sign-up can be found here, or email ipyc-2025@permatilglobal.org Traditional cooking competition at the National PermaYouth Camp  Planting Seeds for a Regenerative Future The International PermaYouth Convergence is an invitation to build a global network of young people leading regenerative action in their own communities. Re-Alliance is proud to support this work, and we invite our members, partners and peers to join. Whether by sending a youth delegation, becoming a Champion, or simply sharing this story, you can help grow this global movement. Because regeneration is about more than restoring ecosystems - it’s about restoring leadership, autonomy, and hope. And engaging youth in this process is essential.

What might Regeneration look like in a humanitarian context? In humanitarian crises, whether driven by conflict, ecological collapse, or systemic injustice, the dominant response remains overwhelmingly extractive . Too often we see degenerative humanitarian responses which meet the basic needs of humans well, but which ultimately deplete the environment and erode community autonomy . Deforestation, drying of aquifers and soil erosion can all be avoided through thoughtful approaches if we plan for the longer term. Regenerative practice reminds us that even in the most urgent conditions, we can design interventions that nurture and collaborate with the living systems upon which all life depends . We need responses that build community autonomy, and relationship with land and other species. A regenerative response is anchored in ethics , described in the Permaculture tradition as Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. Rooted in these ethics, we then work with principles , drawn from deep observation of the living world . A principles-based approach helps our vision and ethics take shape in ways that work with nature, rather than against her . Living systems principles offer very practical and tangible insight, but perhaps more importantly, they offer profound political and cultural lessons on interdependence, resilience, and systemic thinking . In this way, nature-inspired principles are more than guidelines for ecological restoration, and more than simple tools and techniques . They are pathways for transforming and decolonising aid , for disrupting control-based responses, and growing regenerative futures rooted in justice, reciprocity, and care. Healthy ecosystems evolve through complex relationships. They cycle nutrients, they encourage diversity, and they adapt to change. By observing these dynamics, regenerative practitioners translate ecological intelligence into action through design . Let’s explore some of these principles, and see how they might be useful in humanitarian contexts. These principles are inspired by movements like Permaculture and Agroecology, which are in themselves both deeply inspired by Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous wisdom. However, the language we use here is adapted. 🪱 Nurture Diversity In healthy ecosystems, diversity is essential. A forest thrives through the interdependence of many species, each contributing to the health of the whole. Each element in a system relies on others and also contributes to others . Monocultures (of all kinds - ecological or social) are flimsy. Monocultures rely on extra labour and external inputs, and they collapse easily under stress. In humanitarian response, diversity is equally critical. Standardised aid packages often ignore local realities, erasing traditional knowledge and cultural context, and undermining community autonomy. Regenerative responses cultivate diversity.   How might we encourage diversity within our responses and planning? For example, this might be through mapping skills within a community to encourage a healthy exchange of talents and mutual aid. Communities may come together to host an 'Offers and Needs Market' to make their diverse skills and needs more visible. Additionally, diversity can be nurtured alongside boosting nutrition, through growing biodiverse community gardens which encourage a diversity of fresh produce as well as meaningful activity. 🔄 Cycle Resource In wild nature, there is no waste. Fallen leaves feed soil; decomposing matter nurtures new growth. Healthy systems contribute to cycles across scales: cycles of water, nutrients, carbon, and more . Healthy systems ideally have minimal external inputs or outputs, as everything is cycled or exchanged from within the system or across nested systems. Conventional Humanitarian interventions often rely heavily on external inputs and also create a lot of waste outputs. They import food, use lots of wasteful plastic, rely on heavy transport in the supply chains. Sometimes external inputs are necessary when, for example, there has been a natural disaster and there are no local materials to work with. But these conventional interventions create a lot of ecological and social harm. Instead, Regenerative responses encourage cycles. How might we integrate resource cycles into our responses? For example, this could be through   circular sanitation systems , which can enrich soils, increase its water-holding capacity and help grow trees for food, natural medicines, shade, carbon-capture, fuel, building materials, and more. ☀️ Use Energy Flows Energy flows, like the flow of sunlight, sustain life on this planet. A regenerative approach seeks to catch and store both ecological and social energy . For example, capturing sunlight through solar panels, or wind through micro-wind power. Installing rainwater harvesting tanks reduces water stress in future crises. Giving space for peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and upskilling through training programmes can build local knowledge that supports recovery beyond the immediate disaster. Even small adaptations, like orienting shelters toward the sun in cold climates to maximise solar gain, reduce energy needs and environmental impact. Catching and storing energy isn't just about infrastructure, but also about the social and relational. How might we create space for people facing crises to share their own talents and wisdom? 🪾 Work with Patterns Nature often organises through recurring patterns , such as branches in a river mirroring branches in trees mirroring the veins in our arms. This is not random, but evolutionary movement toward efficiency and resilience. Healthy ecosystems are full of recurring patterns, big and small, wide and deep . A Regenerative Response pays attention to patterns and integrates them, for example mapping patterns of how sunlight or water moves across a landscape before deciding where to site shelters. What other patterns might you observe when planning action? 🫶 Integrate the Relational Thriving systems are webs of relationships, not isolated parts . More than the sum of its parts, the relationships themselves bring unique and often beneficial dynamics that create change. Regenerative responses deepen into this ‘special ingredient’ of relationship, and does this across scales. We look at relationships between animals, plants, people, place, bioregion, and more. Designing for relationship means thinking about not just the individual ‘shopping list’ of needs in a crisis moment, like shelters, food and water, but about how these interact with one another, how people relate with one another and with the land. If we ignore these interactions, meeting needs in one area can undermine or compromise a need in another. For example, cutting wood for cooking fuel depletes forests, removing habitats for biodiversity, sources of food, natural medicine, or building materials for shelter in the future. Or building shelters from concrete uses extracted resources and water, depleting aquifers, while also stopping rain from permeating soil and refilling aquifers, adding to risks of both drought and flooding. 🔘 Learn from the Edges In the healthy wild, the place where multiple unique ecosystems meet and interact is often the richest and most biodiverse . Think of the edge of a river where the riverine ecosystem meets a meadow. This is often a space of great abundance, with more species living than in just one of the ecosystems alone. ‘Cultural edges’ can also be abundant , like in the space where host and displaced communities meet. If all communities are welcomed, it can become a rich space of exchange. What learning from the edges (social and/or ecological) might you be able to integrate in your work? 🍂 Design for Adaptivity In this polycrisis, we are experiencing change at unprecedented speeds and intensity. But indeed there is always change. Healthy systems are able to deal with shocks and adapt to them . In the face of such extreme changes like the climate and nature crises, we may be past the tipping point of fully halting the devastating changes to our planet, but we can still build ecological and social resilience to help adapt to the changes . Likewise, how might we design humanitarian interventions that are adaptable so that, as changes occur, the people and place are able to deal with those shocks? Principles or a Regenerative Response: A Political Commitment Nature-inspired principles are not apolitical technical fixes. They are commitments to systemic change. They resist extractive, colonial patterns in humanitarianism , instead aiming for whole-systems health over short-term exploitation; community agency over technocratic control; cyclical, resilient systems over linear, dependency-driven models. As the polycrisis intensifies, regenerative principles offer pathways to reimagine humanitarian action. Not as acts of charity, but as meaningful solidarity.

In refugee and IDP settlements across the world, a mobile phone is a lifeline for the people who liver there. But keeping phones charged in these contexts can be costly, unreliable, or even unsafe. That’s where the Wind Mobile project steps in, blending local ingenuity and resources, renewable wind power, and global collaboration to create real-world solutions that work where they’re needed most. an exploded diagram of a design using timber blades that can be built using recycled components Launched by School of the Earth  and supported by Re-Alliance , Wind Mobile set out to tackle a deceptively simple challenge: how can communities in refugee camps charge phones and power small devices using locally made, low-tech wind turbines ? Rather than developing a one-size-fits-all product, the project adopted a phased, community-driven design approach , working with four different networks across Africa and Europe: Wind Empowerment  (West Africa) – For early technical R&D using salvaged hoverboard magnets. Africa Makerspace Network  (East Africa) – To adapt and prototype turbines using recycled loudspeaker magnets. Habibi.Works  (Greece) – For hands-on, refugee-led manufacturing workshops. Re-Alliance Network  – To extend and test designs for diverse humanitarian contexts. One of Wind Mobile’s most inspiring aspects is its commitment to appropriate technology by building what’s needed, using what’s available. Whether it was hoverboard magnets in Côte d'Ivoire or speaker magnets in Uganda and Kenya, each turbine design was shaped by what local communities could find and fabricate themselves . E-waste proved a reliable source of magnets while the skills of simple carpentry and car mechanics could be transferred to manufacturing the turbines. Upcycled speaker magnets were used in the East African designs in Kenya and Uganda Designs were carefully tested, including in university labs and international competitions, proving that hand-crafted turbines made with salvaged parts  can deliver meaningful energy outputs, up to 500 watts in some cases! In October 2024, the Wind Mobile vision came to life in a makerspace near the Katsikas refugee camp  in Greece. Participants from Kenya , Uganda , and Ghana  joined local and refugee makers for a week-long workshop at Habibi.Works . They built turbines, exchanged skills, overcame language barriers, and left with the tools and confidence to replicate the work in their home communities. The event became a melting pot of ideas, cultures, and practical know-how - exactly what the project hoped to achieve. Read the full end-of-project report here

In a world grappling with climate crises, mass displacement, and dwindling resources, how we manage human waste in camps and settlements has never been more critical. This new guide from Re-Alliance Ecological Sanitation With Reuse in Camps & Settlements , offers a transformative approach that promotes sanitation as a tool for regeneration. What Makes This Guide Different? Too often, the full reuse benefits of ecological sanitation (EcoSan) are not realised in humanitarian settings because of the perceived 'intensive management' it requires. We argue that we can no longer afford to waste the powerful resources generated: compost, urine fertiliser, and cooking fuel. It makes a compelling case for reuse—safe, dignified, and community-driven reuse. There are practical steps for planning for reuse, showing how this can be planned for from the start of a sanitation project. In times of crisis, we must not discard what can be used to restore. Human waste, properly treated, can replenish soils, grow crops, regenerate forests, and reduce dependency on external inputs like fuel and fertiliser. Practical, Proven, and People-Centered The guide is rich with case studies of proven practical technologies—like Arborloos, Fossa Alternas, Urine Diversion Dry Toilets, and Biogas Systems—each evaluated for use in camps and settlements. It distills the criteria for a regenerative response into three simple guiding principles: Keep it simple  – design low-tech, passive systems that can be maintained locally. Keep it going  – build systems that last, even with reduced external funding. Keep it growing  – use outputs to grow food, fuel, trees, and ecosystem services. A Tool for Regeneration This isn’t just about waste. It’s about reversing the degradation often seen in overburdened landscapes. It’s about turning camps into catalysts for ecological repair, where sanitation is linked with reforestation, agriculture, and soil health. By rethinking waste as a resource, and sanitation as an opportunity, this guide invites a reimagining of humanitarian response. It aligns with Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and shows that with the right approach, sanitation can do more than prevent disease—it can build hope, resilience, and ecosystems. Read the guide here We would love to know your thoughts on this guide. Do email us via our contact page if you have any questions, suggestions or examples of ecological sanitation with reuse to take forward the conversation.

“The forest does not speak, but it remembers.”(Limba: "yama thɔmɛ buyaŋ buŋ") - A traditional saying shared by Gibrilla Kamara from SILCC, reflecting the deep memory and spirit held by the forests. Across Sierra Leone, forests are more than ecosystems - they are sacred. Languages are more than tools, they are vessels of knowledge. Culture is not just heritage, it’s a living force in protecting land, restoring balance, and reclaiming community power. Working at the heart of this is the Society for Indigenous Languages, Communities and Cultures (SILCC), a small but powerful grassroots organisation led by Gibrilla Kamara in Kambia District. Through language revitalisation, cultural preservation, and ecological regeneration, SILCC is demonstrating how indigenous knowledge and practices are not only relevant, they are essential. The Forest as Sacred In villages like Konta and Masoko, forests are understood as living beings, home to sacred trees, ancestral monuments, and ceremonial sites. These are places where songs are sung, healing rituals performed, and community identity rooted. In the forest, the community looks for the biggest tree which they use as the ceremonial hub and the place of gathering. in that tree, it is a sacred place and the tree itself will become a sacred tree. - Gibrilla Kamara SILCC’s work includes negotiating formal agreements with communities to protect these sacred forests, blending cultural protocols with regenerative land governance. In one example, the community of Konta signed a memorandum of understanding to prevent destructive commercial activity and reinstate traditional forestry practices. The preservation agreements came from deep community dialogue. In 2018, SILCC hosted a gathering of elders from 17 villages in Konta, where discussions focused on fighting back against commercial logging and reviving sacred practices. “We cement the importance of these agreements with traditional ceremonies,” explains Gibrilla. “Each village is supported to hold ceremonies that revive customs and re-consecrate forest lands, with around fifteen hectares protected per agreement.” Today, over 80 villages have expressed interest in making their own forest preservation agreements. Photo from a ceremony in Konta, where community elders, youth, and families gather from across villages to witness and celebrate the revival of sacred traditions.  Language as Regeneration Language carries the worldview of a people, and with it, the ethics of how to live well with land, ancestors, and each other. SILCC has developed storybook resources in Limba and Bullom (Mani), two indigenous languages under threat. These books blend environmental storytelling with cultural heritage. For example, the Limba storybook features ethnographic narratives and environmental stories rooted in daily life, rituals, and respect for nature. The Bullom book captures the history of a critically endangered language through tales of fishing, marriage ceremonies, and the crowning of village chiefs, teaching respect for nature, pride in heritage, and the importance of community knowledge. “Traditional ceremonies happen only in our native languages - many things cannot be easily translated. When we lose language, we lose whole ways of seeing and caring for the land” - Gibrilla Kamara, Indigenous language Literacy Coordinator at SILCC Teaching children in their mother tongues strengthens cultural identity, boosts learning outcomes, and ensures the next generation carries forward vital ecological wisdom. Check out the Limba Literacy Book produced by Gibrilla Kamara and SILCC here . Illustration from the front page of the Limba Literacy Book, credit to SILCC and the African Storybook Team Regenerating Knowledge, Regenerating Land Between February and July, SILCC worked with traditional healers to document herbal medicine and healing practices, including collaboration with a renowned bone specialist. This work ensures that ancestral knowledge remains accessible for future generations seeking holistic and sustainable healthcare. They’ve also documented blacksmithing techniques, an essential craft for local farming tools, and are supporting intergenerational learning to keep these traditions alive. Meanwhile, beekeeping and tree planting initiatives are helping tie ecological restoration to livelihoods. Eight beehive boxes were built this year, and over a dozen schools participated in planting trees and distributing cocoa seeds. “Young people are increasingly drawn to projects like beekeeping,” Gibrilla notes. “They see how it supports biodiversity, food systems, and even small businesses. There’s a real hunger to reconnect- with nature, with tradition, and with opportunity.” Community members in Konta Village discussing the importance of traditional forest and cultural practices. A Call to Solidarity SILCC’s work is a powerful reminder that regeneration is not just technical - it’s cultural, spiritual, and political. It’s about liberating knowledge, protecting sacred places, and reclaiming languages that carry centuries of wisdom. “Traditional knowledge is not something to preserve in a museum,” says Gibrilla. “It’s a living system—relevant to climate action, education reform, food sovereignty, and resilience-building.” As the climate and humanitarian sectors search for sustainable solutions, they would do well to listen more closely to those like SILCC - who are not only imagining a different future, but actively building it. Interested in supporting or learning more about SILCC? Visit https://silccsierraleone.org/  or follow them on Facebook . You can also reach out directly at silccsierraleone@gmail.com .

Since 2023, Lebanon’s Masnaa border crossing in the Bekaa Valley has seen a growing influx of Syrian refugees . At the same time, the region faces a major environmental crisis: the Litani River, one of Lebanon’s largest water sources, is heavily polluted - much of it due to untreated sewage. Because Lebanese policy prohibits formal refugee camps , informal settlements have emerged without adequate sanitation infrastructure. Sanitation Challenges in Informal Camps In these tented camps, families often live in overcrowded shelters. These structures typically fail to meet basic safety or sanitation standards. With an average of 9 people per tent, sharing toilets means there are privacy problems, overcrowding, and challenges with accessing toilets in the winter. Additionally, the toilets are makeshift and built haphazardly, using easily available cheap resources that do not consider safety and proper sanitation requirements. However, the biggest problem is not structural, but lies in waste disposal. Some toilets drain into underground barrels that require manual removal of human waste, while others use small containers that are frequently emptied by truck. These systems regularly overflow, especially in winter, when rain causes waste to resurface and flood the camp. The result: foul smells, unsafe conditions, and contamination of groundwater. A Regenerative Sanitation Pilot   To address the urgent issue of waste leaking into groundwater and contaminating water sources in the region, Farms Not Arms (Turba-Farm), supported by Re-Alliance, launched a vermicomposting project at Turba Farm in Zahle, Bekaa, next to a tented informal camp housing 120 Syrian refugees. This initiative involved using local materials to build three vermicomposting toilets - alternative latrines that filter urine and use worms to convert faecal matter into compost, improving sanitation while restoring soil health. Designed as a pilot project, the toilets built provided an insight on the functionality of the design and the positive impacts vermicompost toilets can have on reducing contamination and flooding camp wide.  Toilets in the camp in Zahle, Lebanon (above) along with the exposed drainage system near to the tents (below) How Vermicomposting Toilets Work Vermicomposting uses earthworms to compost organic waste matter. Each toilet consists of three components: a seat, an insulated worm tank, and a soakaway or “green filter bed.” The toilet designed by Farms Not Arms is built above the worm tank so that human waste is easily transferred from the toilet to the tank, where the worms are located. The worm tank consists of different layers – gravel, covered by a nylon mesh, a mix of dry organic materials (such as wood shavings, straw, and dead leaves), and a mixture of compost, manure, and kitchen scraps. This is the perfect environment for the worms to thrive, multiply and decompose the faecal matter. Additionally, the tank is insulated with a wooden sheet to protect the worms from extreme temperatures. There is a perforated drainage pipe inside the tank, wrapped with a nylon mesh, stopping any worms or organic material from seeping through to the soakaway area. The vermicompost filters the urine, removing 90% of the pollutants, and through the drainage pipe is further filtered by the green filter bed, ensuring that no human waste pollutes the groundwater. The solid waste turns into compost that can be used on farms and sold. Maintaining the toilets is done by those using the toilets. After its build, the only costs are from the wood chips that need refilling every 2 months, making these toilets ideal for refugee camps where resources are scarce. Above and below - Illustrations of Vermicompost Toilets with the latrine built above a worm tank.       Community Engagement and Local Adaptation The project showcases a collaborative process between the Farms Not Arms team and the camp residents, who were enthusiastic about the toilets after the workshops. The enthusiasm remained after the build as the new toilets eliminated the foul smells, provided sanitation to a tent previously lacking a toilet, and reduced the need to empty their former septic tank. The team also spotted early indications that suggested health improvements among those using the vermicomposting toilet rather than their old methods.  A vermicomposting toilet outside a tent in an informal camp in Bekaa. Farms Not Arms saw that involving the toilet recipients in the build fostered community ownership of the project, and local expertise led to an adjustment in the toilet design. Replacing wood with concrete and metal sheets to build the structure reflected the needs on the ground and incorporated durable and cost-effective materials.  As always when implementing a regenerative initiative, adaptation to the local context is crucial. This project faced some challenges due to the local context, such as cold temperatures slowing the worm reproduction and, consequently, the initial use of the toilets. Fortunately, since the use of the toilets, there have been no other functional difficulties. The limited space in the camp also restricted the placement of the toilets near existing structures. Therefore, the toilets were placed in tents without existing bathrooms or enough space to build a new toilet next to the existing ones.  It is worth noting that vermicomposting toilets require height to elevate the toilet adequately above the tank to avoid problems with the drainage system and space for the green filter bed suitable for daily use. Some users expressed concerns about the stairs to access the toilet, particularly for elderly individuals, however, as the land in this camp is flat and the tank must be above ground, this is an issue which could be mitigated in areas with different terrain.   Another factor to consider is that vermicomposting toilets use water; therefore, if water is scarce, you may want to consider choosing dry toilets rather than vermicomposting toilets.  Unfortunately, due to the area’s current instability, this case study does not include up-to-date testimonies about the current state or community’s experience of the vermicomposting toilets. Part of a Broader Regenerative Approach This pilot, in partnership with Farms Not Arms, is one of 16 projects implemented as part of Re-Alliance’s Regenerative Camps and Settlements Guidelines research. Re-Alliance supports grassroots-led, regenerative solutions in disaster, displacement, and conflict settings through gathering evidence, sharing capacity, and creating accessible resources to influence systemic change across the humanitarian sector. Learnings from the Zahle project and other pilots supported by Re-Alliance are informing a growing suite of illustrated guides and multimedia tools designed to support communities and practitioners worldwide in adopting regenerative sanitation approaches. Learn More and Take Action Interested in building similar toilets in your context, or learning from others who have? Explore our free guides , join a Re-Alliance event , or connect with our peer-learning network  to join the movement for community-led, regenerative response. This case study was compiled by Lily Hallam, a recent Global Studies graduate from Maastricht University and a current volunteer at Re-Alliance. She is passionate about progressive policy and inclusive social development. Her main areas of interest are exploring the structural roots of systemic injustices, particularly at the intersections of conflict, institutions, and development challenges.