The fight by the government, NGOs, and civil society organisations to eliminate open defecation still lingers on.
Progress is being made in that regard as more and more communities attain open defecation-free status.
Currently, the good news is that two communities at Walewale in the West Mamprusi municipality of the North East region have attained open defecation free sanitised status.
This is the first time a community has been verified and declared ODF Sanitised in the history of Ghana since the country adopted the Community-Led Total Sanitation Concept for improved basic sanitation in rural communities.
This unprecedented feat was chalked on July 13th, 2021 when the communities, Takuka and Zangum-Bouduri were successfully verified and declared ODF Sanitised by a joint team of two independent verifiers and a Regional Inter-Agency Coordinating Committee on Sanitation from the Regional Coordinating Council.
At a field trip to the two communities, residents expressed gratitude and said the initiative has improved their health and hygiene behaviors.
For a community to be declared ODF Sanitised, every household and public gathering place must have an improved latrine and hygienically maintained latrine. And this is exactly what met the news team when we entered the two communities.
There was no sign of fecal matter, all latrines had hand washing facilities, animals were caged with dropping controlled to a minimum, surroundings were generally clean, all households practice proper food hygiene and there was hygienic water storage at every household.
These are some of the indicators for attaining a sanitized level. Takuka and Zangum-Bouduri are among eleven ODF communities that were identified and supported with model latrines.
Their support follows the effect of last year’s heavy rains and floods that resulted in the destruction and collapse of almost all latrines in the communities. Through the benevolence of Global Communities, under its USAID sponsored WASH4 Health project, the communities were supported in an effort to encourage them to sustain their ODF status, which eventually led to the two improving the hygiene conditions and moving up the ODF ladder.
Sharing their sentiments with GBC News, a community member, Amama Mumuni from Zangum-Bouduri, said, “we did not know how to do the dig and bury so we were just defecating around and when it rains, the whole area smells and houseflies disturbed us in our houses. But after we built our toilets we now living healthy lives.”
Abotsi Francis, who is a natural leader at Takuka, was full of praise for the feat. He said for his community to be declared as the first to attain ODF sanitised has proven the commitment and hard work they all put into the initiative. He said residents depended on the only dam in the community for household use which was contaminated due to open defecation as well as animals who also drank from the dam.
According to him, children including his own son suffered from Bilharzia but the provision of a borehole by Global Communities has eliminated all forms of sanitation-related diseases.
Another resident, Edith Enock, acknowledged the challenges they went through before Global communities intervention.
she stressed, “defecating in the open exposed our dignity to men and strangers but after we had our toilets, our dignity is restored and we learnt how to practice proper hygiene such as washing our hands before and after cooking, cleaning our compounds and having separate drinking water storage and cups.”
Abotsi Prosper, a Natural Leader and a Former Assemblyman for Daboya-Mankarigu constituency indicated that a spot fine of GHC20 for flouting the sanitation bye-laws at the time forced residents to commit to building their own toilets. “We fixed our own bye-laws and because of that everything was perfect. We thank Global Communities for coming to our aid and we promise to sustain it.”
The Community Leaders for Takuka and Zangum-Bouduri, Kwesitse Agbe and Issahaku Yingneriba commended implementing partners for bringing sanity to their communities. They promised to institute stringent bye-laws to help sustain the sanitation situations in their respective communities.
Mr Agbe was particularly elated and according to him, this is his first time to speak to the camera as a result of leading his community to chalk that feat.
“Currently anyone caught openly defecating is fined GHC20 but as it stands due to the improvement we have seen, I am increasing it to GHC50. As we accepted the guidelines of Global communities, we look forward to attaining more success and maintaining it.”
The West Mamprusi Municipal Environmental Health Officer, Anass Baba Iddrisu, said the zeal and commitment of community members coupled with the setting of sanitation bye laws triggered the communities to achieve the feat. He said through the benevolence of Global communities, Takuka and Zangum-Bouduri have become model communities for the municipality.
“We at the Assemblies tie our developmental project distribution to sanitation thus if a community is doing well in sanitation, and there is any development opportunity, such community tends to benefit. Now Takuka has been connected to the national grid, access to potable water, and currently, their road is being worked on. In fact, Takuka is now a model community through the benevolence of Global Communities.”
The Coordinator for the Northern Zone, Global Communities, Dominic Dapaah said Sanitised Community is the third level in the ODF category in Ghana’s ODF Verification Protocol and it is attained after ODF Basic and ODF (Level 2). This status, according to him, if sustained for 36 months, can lift a community to become Sustainable Sanitized, the highest in the ODF ladder. He, therefore, encouraged the communities to do their best to attain that level.
In facilitating the attainment of sanitized level, Global Communities partnering with the West Mamprusi Municipal Environmental Health and Sanitation Department carried out series of activities including orientation of officers, re-triggering of the communities, training of natural leaders and supporting Regional Inter Coordinating Committee on Sanitation monitoring in addition to the weekly routine monitoring by the EHAs.
