Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion: Communities Strife for a Healthier Place to Live
by Ruth Ayisi Maputo - Like most of the 3,000 residents of Mafalala, one of the poorest and most congested suburbs in the capital city, Maputo, Maria do Céu Chonga is up against a constant battle to prevent herself and her family from bouts of diarrhoea. The latest victim is her five-year-old grand daughter, Safira, who has been suffering from diarrhoea ever since the first heavy rains this year. She was recently admitted into hospital, but although at home now, she still has not fully recovered; plus the rains have not stopped. “When it rains, the latrine always overflows into my home,” says 57-year-old Chonga. She points to the latrine enclosure, which is made up of zinc sheeting situated a few metres from her small reed home, which she has lived in for the past 38 years. Chonga, a widow, explains that she cannot afford the 200,000 Meticais (10 US dollars) to pay for the family’s latrine to be emptied. She only earns a meager income buying and reselling charcoal and coconuts, enough to feed and clothe herself, her adult unemployed son, who also lives with them, and Safira, who lost both her parents to tuberculosis. “I have no extra money to pay for the latrine to be emptied. During the dry season we cope, but during the rains the waste from the latrine soaks the ground of my home.” Chonga enters her windowless home and points to a large wet patch, where an old, damp mattress lays on the muddy floor; that is where her son sleeps. The other side of the room looks a bit drier, and is where the grandmother and grand-daughter sleep together on an old double bed, which is at least raised off the ground. Chonga’s hut is just one of the thousands of poorly constructed homes in the overcrowded neighbourhood, where pools of water lay stagnant around most corners and where flies during the day, and mosquitoes at night, thrive. Yet despite the poverty, congestion and poor sanitation, the situation has improved in recent years. The municipality works with a community based organization, called “Associação Damba da Mafalala”. Its vice-president, Bernardo Magaia, explains that before people used to defecate in plastic bags and throw them in the ditches. Rubbish piled up indiscriminately and stagnant water used to collect in huge pools, and nobody would do anything about it. “Now Mafalala is much cleaner.”by Today, an increasing number of the residents, like Chonga, have access to a latrine. Some 2,900 latrines have been constructed since 1999. Chonga says before her family used to dig a small hole in the ground, which they surrounded with a tyre. “The smell used to get very bad and we would have to keep digging new holes.” The stagnant water is still a problem because of the high groundwater level, but the community is tackling it. UNICEF has supported the construction and maintenance of drainage channels and “Associação Damba” has successfully mobilised a member of each family to take part in a weekly cleaning campaign, especially aimed at clearing the drains, every Saturday from 7am-9am. Yet the situation is still critical both in Mafalala and other peri-urban areas and even worse in the rural areas. Countrywide, some 75 per cent of the rural population and 60 per cent of the peri-urban and urban population do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities. Not surprisingly, diarrhoeal diseases are common and contribute to the high under-five mortality rates. Only one in every five children survives to celebrate his or her fifth birthday. UNICEF has also supported the community to build subsidised latrines for every family at a cost of less than 50 US dollars each. The family just has to pay less than one US dollar for the latrine and learns the importance of not only having and using a latrine, but also of keeping it clean and using soap after using it. UNICEF Officer for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion, Domingos Chiconela, stresses that it was crucial that the communities “identified their own problems and came up with sustainable solutions. It has to be a participatory approach”. Following this strategy communities are able to replicate initiatives and get to scale Chonga has a poster showing pictorially the importance of washing your hands stuck on the zinc door of her latrine. The small sandy yard in front of her home is swept clean. She welcomes the regular visits of the local activist, who reminds her about good sanitation. “She always comes around to see me and my family, and to discuss about our problems.” Chonga also participates whenever possible in the weekly cleaning days. “I used to do regularly, but now I have developed asthma, so I go when I can,” says the grandmother.
|
