By Philip Tengzu
Pire, (UW/R), July 25, GNA – The local authorities of Pire, a farming community in the Nadowli-Kaleo District, have expressed concern about the indiscriminate open defecation in the community, which has posed a health risk.
They said the community risked suffering from the outbreak of sanitation-related diseases such as cholera due to the lack of toilet facilities in the community, compelling community members to resort to defecating in the open.
“Because we don’t have toilets, you go behind your house, look around and if nobody is looking at you, you defecate there and go back to your room without knowing you are carrying diseases,” Mr Zachariah Bagah, the Chief of the community, said.
He said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Pire when the GNA visited the community to ascertain some development challenges and initiatives in the community.
Naa Bagah observed that the community members, a few years ago, constructed toilet facilities in their houses but they had all collapsed because they were constructed with inferior materials.
The chief explained that farming was the only occupation of the people in the community, and they did not have the financial capacity to construct durable toilet facilities for themselves without the support of the government or other Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs).
Mr Camillus Taatuora, the Assembly Member of the Pire Electoral Area, appealed to the government and NGOs to help the community construct latrines to save them from suffering from any sanitation-related diseases.
“Every house used to have a toilet, but they have all collapsed. If you look around you can see that we have farmed the whole area, there is no bush that you can go and defecate”, he explained.
Mr Taatuora also stressed the need for the community members to be educated on the proper management of the toilet facilities in their houses.
“If we do it close to the house and we don’t know how to manage them that will also be another challenge for the community,” Mr Taatuora, a Physician Assistant, said.
The government, with support from UNICEF, initiated the Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) campaign to encourage communities to construct household latrines in a bid to end Open Defecation.
But that seemed not to have been successful due to the inability of many people to construct durable toilet facilities with good materials, therefore, leading to the relapse of many communities that had attained Open Defecation Free (ODF) status through the CLTS initiative.
Data from the Upper West Regional Environmental Health and Sanitation Department indicated that 815 communities out of a total of 1,167 communities in the region had attained ODF status, perhaps including Pire community that had relapsed.
It was, therefore, important for the government to reassess its approach to ending Open Defecation by supporting willing but vulnerable communities to construct durable toilet facilities.
Mr Martin Sumbo, the Upper West Regional Coordinator of Global Communities, had proposed a well-coordinated and targeted subsidy model for households that would enable them construct durable latrines.
That, he said, would also ensure a sustainable fight against open defecation in the country.
GNA