b'Objectives Women Empowerment through Water,broad capacity building and learning-by-doing Sanitation and Health (WeWash), commencedvocational training, to generate opportunities May 2018, and was established to empower,for women and girls to take on leadership roles build capacity and encourage womenswithin the water and sanitation sector. participation and leadership within theirWeWash was implemented in the villages communities, address ongoing water,of Sulitsa, Hristiyanovo and Kalitinovo, three sanitation, health and hygiene challenges,communities in Central-South Bulgaria, varying and to support the delivery of healthy food forin size, access to natural resources, and in women and girls living in rural communities.ethnic and demographic structure, status Addressing the Sustainable Developmentand capacity. Villagers in the Kalitinovo were Goals (SDGs), WeWash focuses primarily on themainly of Roma origin, often leaving school following: early at around the age of 12-14 years. Cultural challenges were apparent including child marriage, with many Roma girls married by the age of 14 or 15 years, with girls graduating high school the exception rather than the rule. The birth rate amongst the Roma ethnic group is considered high, whilst life expectancy is low, and many more find themselves surviving on social benefits.An extension and diversification of an earlier initiative implemented by the Earth Forever Foundation (EFF), a successful non-Although somewhat restricted by existinggovernmental organisation based in Stara legislation and the often powerful armZagora, Bulgaria, the WeWash project would of water and sanitation companies, thebenefit from the involvement and EFF project employed a bottom up approach,experience within the alternative sanitation the onus placed on community ownershipsector, and this knowledge would help with in the creation of sustainable solutions, withthe construction and design of the training relationship building a key objective of theprogrammes and promotional materials, WeWash business model, and the activesupported by further expert trainers and encouragement of stakeholders, includingconsultants. Soroptimist International Club local mayors, community centers and schools,Ancient Plovdiv, took the role of monitoring, government institutions, utility companies, civilsupported by a number of respective rural society, and the media. Central to achievingcommunities who were actively engaged project objectives, was the establishment of athroughout the project term. series of awareness raising programmes, with soroptimistinternational.org 13'