“We are dying of Cholera”: residents of Clara town cry for help

Clara town located on Bushrod Island, a suburb of Monrovia, Liberia became famous for being the birthplace of Liberian football star George Oppong Weah.

Clara town, founded by a Methodist missionary 40 years ago, is attracting global attention in recent years, as its inhabitants are burdened by the effects of poor, inadequate and over stretched sanitation facilities, unsafe drinking water supply, decrepit drainages, and poor hygiene practices.

The Clara community has a population of 48,000 with 67 fully built up houses (and another 967 unfinished houses) inhabited by 12,335 women and 11,730 men, people, according to a community census exercise. Its residents face huge challenges in accessing improved water supply, safe sanitation and hygiene services.

Access to water, sanitation, and hygiene services is generally poor in Liberia including its capital city Monrovia. Facilities have generally old and deteriorated no thanks to a 14 year old civil war.

Statistics are also unreliable, but a 2009 story by Allwestafrica.com reports that “just one-third of Monrovia’s 1.5 million have access to clean toilets, and 20 to 30 cholera cases are reported weekly; in 2008 there were 888 suspected cases, 98 percent of them in Monrovia’s overcrowded shantytowns such as West Point, Buzzi Quarter, Clara Town, and Sawmill”

Open defecation

Raymond is a 45 year old male resident in Clara town, who admits to practicing open defecation because basic sanitation facilities are inadequate, unaffordable, and over stretched. He narrates his experience,

“When you go to the toilet, you stay in line, sometimes 100 people can be outside, and sometimes 50 people can be on the queue waiting to use the toilet. You may pou-pou (defecate) on yourself if you have running stomach”

Veronica: I ‘toilet’ in the open

Another resident, Veronica a 9^th grade female student of Saint Mary’s Catholic School in Clara Town, says some of her colleagues often contact water borne diseases due to the poor WASH services. “One of my friends had got cholera after drinking “. As a way out the school pupils resort to buying packaged water in plastic bags: “In the school, we buy us spent $5 Liberian dollars to buy Mineral water”

Though there is a toilet in her school, there are no soap and hand towels for her to ensure personal hygiene after using the toilet facilities. If lack of hand washing items is only her headache in the school, it would have been better. 15 year old Veronica faces challenges in maintaining personal menstrual hygiene due to lack of safe water and sanitation facilities in the school, saying some of her colleagues including at times excuse themselves from class work in order to cater for their mistral needs: “If the menses of any of the female students start in school, then you will tell the Teacher, and you will come home. We often miss classes and lessons because of this.”

Read the whole article here:

By Babatope Babalobi, in Monrovia.

Tamil Nadu: eco‐san toilet promoter Sridharan

Varadharajapuram is a village on the banks of River Kaveri in Thottiyam Block of Tiruchirappalli District, Tamil Nadu, India. Being a water‐logged area because of the closeness to the river, people in the village cannot construct low‐cost toilet models. Except five families, the remaining families were practicing open defecation on the river banks and on the road sides leading to the banana groves.

Sridharan, a 32 year old youth, one day had a chance to attend a village meeting of women self‐help groups formed by Gramalaya, a local NGO. The field staff from Gramalaya was talking about the formation of Association for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (AWASH ) committees in the village. They also briefed the women  about the dangers of open defecation nearby the water bodies and the importance of having toilets at the households.

With access to the toilet came access to dignity

There have been encouraging increases in the number of poorer people who are able to access toilets in Deoghar and Pakur districts of Jharkhand, India, thanks to the Total Sanitation Campaign.  While this is a reason for optimism, questions do arise: “Who benefits? Is this programme really catering to ALL?”

This Government of India programme offers incentives for families below the poverty line to construct toilets with technical designs approved by the District Water and Sanitation Mission (DWSM) responsible for sanitation.

Sustainable, Water sanitation in Comsats Abbottabdad, Pakistan

I am student of Sustainable water sanitation Health and development programme started in Comsats Abbottabat Pakistan with collaboration of Norway and Nepal. I am currently in Darband near Kala Dhaka district Mansehra Paksitan, where there is a big water reservoir that covers a huge area. I am living here since the last 6 months and during this period I have observed that most of the Medical cases from Kala Dhaka And Darband are linked to water. Water of Darband is contaminated because it is open source of water and due to really a bad sanitation system. Open Defecation is one of the main source of contamination as well as animal dungs, solid waste, and black water. The sanitation system in Kala Dhaka the nearby area of Darband lacks of basic sanitation facilities.

Water Reserviour at Darband, Pakistan

People use to defecate in open fields and have mud houses. Open sources of Water is also very dangerous as many people are drinking water from these water sources, specially in rainy season where every thing goes to these open sources and may leads to cholera and diarrhea. It is a risk and threat to community health and lot a deaths specially children are directly linked to it. One more thing which I observed and saw with my eyes is that people specially take reservoirs with water to home for their families. These reservoirs are contaminated with all the waste whether it is solid waste, black water, animal dung, human excreta every thing!!! In my opinion there is much more need for well planned and better sanitation and water supply system and more implementing opportunities for Ecological Sanitation. Now I shared this information with you people so that you can have a better insight of the area and can suggest some useful and better approaches we can adopt in order to prevent this health risk.

Source: Muhammad Aayaz, Student MS-Sustainable, Water sanitation Health & development Comsats Abbottabdad Pakistan