Communities in Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State have a reason to celebrate the Sanitation, Hygiene and Water In Nigeria (SHAWN) project being sponsored by the Department For International Development (DFID) in collaboration with the United Nations Education Funds (UNICEF) and the Kaduna State government. This project which promotes hygiene has greatly changed the lives of the people for good and improved their health condition, Leadership reports.

Prior to this intervention by the organisations, life was literally hell for the people. For so many years, they shared their source of drinking water which is a river in the area with cows. The communities had no toilets and so the people practiced open defecation. But the story today is different with six communities from three wards monitored in Kachia having been declared Open Defecation Free (ODF) through the practice of SHAWN. The six communities are Ungwa Rana, Sabon Gida, Ungwa Madaki, Ungwa Majindadi, Anturu and Gora all in Gidan Takwai, Sabon Sarki and Awan wards.

Prior to their new status, all manner of diseases thrived in the communities as the people defecated in the open and were not hygiene conscious. But with the intervention through SHAWN and its implementation, the people say they are better off now as each household do not only have toilets, but also have happy tippy taps where they wash their hands with soap after using the toilet or returning from their farms.

A particularly excited resident, Mama Rhoda Adamu, 80 could not hide her joy at the development in her community and said, “I am now a happy great grandmother because my children and grandchildren no longer fall sick like before. Mungode, Mungode (Hausa word meaning we are grateful).”

She went down memory lane, recalling “while I was growing before I got married and started having children, we used to drink from only one river with cows. Most times when the cows are there before us, we would have to wait before we fetched same water for drinking and domestic activities. This practice caused us a lot of sickness and our children kept falling sick and we lost some of them due to the consumption of the unhygienic water, but today I’m happy we have tap water and we have also been taught certain hygiene practices.

“Although I am old, but I’m happy that my children and grandchildren no longer fall sick like it used to be those days, rather than spending money on medicine, we now spend such money on food. We are indeed grateful to those who helped in providing us with the boreholes,” she further stated.

Speaking in the same vein, the village head of Ungwa Madaki and Ungwan Majindadi, Mr. Danladi Bako said, “through the tippy taps now, we wash our hands with the use of soap or ash after returning from farm or using the toilet because of the provision of boreholes by RUWASSA and UNICEF.

He said, “Before now, we shared the same river with cows and we got sick very often with diseases such as typhoid, ulcer, malaria, fever and diarrhoea but with the intervention through SHAWN, there is a drastic reduction of diseases among my subjects and we are grateful to UNICEF and Kaduna State government.

”Our people now have toilets in their houses, we no longer defecate  in the open, we are now healthier, we now spend our money on food instead of the hospital and unlike when we used to drink water infested with cow dumps from the river.”

Speaking on the project, UNICEF chief, Kaduna Field Office, Utpal Moitra said the provision of water is a fundamental right of every human, but expressed regret that that basic right is being challenged.

“This is what SHAWN project is trying to provide  but I think we need to be careful because at the end of the day, it is the state that  needs to ensure that this basic rights are provided to citizens.

“SHAWN provides the way and example to share with government, work with government to say that this is possible. I think we need to understand SHAWN project from that line, that SHAWN is an example by which some of these basic  rights are fulfilled and delivered and we just need to have patience with the government so that LGAs and communities within the state have these basic rights.

“So in one hand SHAWN is a project with target but we need to understand why SHAWN came into being from this angle. One is to make government understand that these basic rights are made available to citizens.

“But if communities are aware that every household or individual should have a core sense of hygiene and sanitation by not defecating openly, they should also understand why it’s important to wash hands, why it’s important to drink water from right source and the government needs to provide such facilities to them

“Finally, there should be investments because this investment are fulfilling the basic human rights and SHAWN show that it’s possible. This is why we are proud of SHAWN and what the project achieved. But it’s a good sign of what we can still achieve within these few years,” he pointed out.

Government has so many policies in water and sanitation and this year the state government invested heavily in water and sanitation. For example, the government this year has invested close to N600 million and last year it invested close to N200 million, which means within two years it has invested close to N1 billion. The government expressed optimism about the direction it is headed.

“I think what we need to understand is that we need this kind of investment. We should know also that it’s only 50 percent investment, the remaining 50 percent comes from the project. So, it would have been two billion naira if Kaduna has to do it alone.

“We will also like to say that awareness and enlightenment is very important in communities for them to understand the importance of the project. DFID is an important donor, they will want us to meet our target and we also want to meet the target. What we want to achieve is for the state to take up the responsibility of delivering those various basic rights.

“We need to drive the campaign in Kaduna of hand washing. It’s something we need to find a way to do alongside RUWASSA. We need to make it a regular state campaign,” he stated.

No doubt, this intervention has helped and is really helping to save lives in these communities. It is therefore hoped it will be replicated in other communities facing same challenges as Ungwa Madaki/Majindadi communities before they were liberated. There should be concerted efforts to make life more meaningful to the people.