UNICEF, Japanese gov’t to end open-air defecation

A man in his 30s dashes into a nearby bush not far from the roadside, he lowers his trousers and pants and lifts his white gown in a hurry. With the contours of his face portraying a severe grimace, he squats for a long while. He later on heaves a groan of relief, stands up, removes a piece of paper from his pocket and cleans his ‘backside’ with it. He seems to be now at ease with himself after freeing his bowels from an ‘uprising’.

The setting of this scene, (incidentally witnessed by this reporter) is one of the villages in Mbere Division of the Adamawa Region of Cameroon. The scene is a tell-tale of open air defecation in many areas of the country that is at the origin of many diseases.

It is in this perspective that the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, and the Government of Japan have launched a project to stop open-air defecation in the East and Adamawa Regions.

Sponsored by the Japanese Government, the project is tailored to sensitise people on the need to have their latrines and stop defecating in the open air. Better known by its French appellation as Assainissement Total Piloté par la Communauté, ATPC, the project was conceived to sensitise local communities on the health benefits of using latrines.

According to officials of one non-governmental organisation, Adventist Development and Relief Agency, ADRA, that is executing the project, 100 villages have been selected for the onslaught in the Adamawa and East Regions.

The coordinator of ADRA told reporters, recently, that they selected villages wherein open defecation is over 50 percent.

“We have selected over 50 villages in the Adamawa region and 50 villages in the East region. We are telling them what health benefits they will make, the diseases they will avoid, if they make sure every household has a latrine,” she explained.

“We are providing the local communities with technical assistance to construct modern latrines to avoid diseases, especially in children,” one of the ADRA supervisors on the field, Daniel Ndavoumta, stated.

Going by the Chief of Gale village in Meiganga in the Adamawa Region, Jean Gale, his village is one of the beneficiaries of the anti-open-air defection campaign.

“The project is helping us to construct modern latrines. I thank UNICEF and the Japanese Government for the campaign, because, it will help to stop our children from contacting certain diseases. This is very important, because, he who is in good health has wealth,” the Chief rhapsodised. He said he was telling his people to avoid diseases by making sure that each household constructs a modern latrine so as to bid farewell to the habit wherein people empty their bowels in the wild.

The same nasty situation holds sway in Andom I village in Diang Subdivision of the East Region. Over 50 percent of people here empty their bowels just anywhere.

“Even the toilets some of us have are terrible. They are not covered and flies leave the toilet straight to our houses and land on our food. You know the consequences,” the Secretary General of the Local Follow-up Committee of the ATPC project, Raphael Essomba, lamented.

He said even those who claim to have toilets in the village have toilets that are full and pigs often feast on them. Many people in the village, he went on, are struggling to construct modern toilets because of the ongoing sensitisation campaign.

Two ADRA officials, Achille Michel Hop Bategui and Pascal Noel Ajahoung, said almost all families are in the process of constructing modern toilets.

They said a few people in Andom were still resisting the idea of constructing modern toilets for themselves. They said such people were asking for material assistance. They are said to be recalling the fact that one NGO known as Mutcare, a few years back, provided them with bags of cement to build modern toilets.

“But many of them ended up selling the cement and did not construct the toilets. This means that they did not understand the importance of having modern latrines. Our approach is different because we sensitise them and tell them the benefits of having modern latrines,” one of the ADRA officials said.

He stated that they were out to ignite behaviour change as tailored in the provisions of ATPC projects piloted by UNICEF and sponsored by the Japanese Government.