The Association for Water, Applied Education & Renewable Energy (AWARE), a non-governmental organisation of Umerkot, has initiated a campaign in collaboration with the Freshwater Action Network South Asia Pakistan and other civil society organisations by sending letters and cards to authorities concerned, demanding them to give priority to the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) sector that is in dire need of improvement.
The volunteers sent cards to the departments concerned, including the Sindh Public Health Engineering Department, Thar Taluka Municipal Administration, Sindh chief minister, President Asif Ali Zardari, chief justice of Pakistan, Sindh Assembly members and National Assembly members.
AWARE Executive Director Ali Akbar Rahimoon said 5-9 feet of stagnant floodwater is affecting six union councils (UCs) of Umerkot district – Satriyo, Arharo Bhurgari and Samaro of Samaro taluka, and Sher Khan Chandio, Talhi and Nabisar of Kunri taluka.
He said, “People are living in miserable conditions and there is no alternate source of potable water in the submerged area. The stagnant water is an obstruction in the rehabilitation of 200,000 displaced persons. Moreover, no crops can be cultivated in these areas as well. People are using irrigation water for drinking.”
He deplored the fact that the emergency declared by the Pakistani government and the United Nations was withdrawn on December 31, but there is still an emergency situation in Umerkot.
On the banks of canals, people have no other option but to use the available space or canal banks for urination and defecation, resulting in contamination of the water sources, he said.
He urged the authorities concerned to take immediate notice of the situation and take significant measures.
An AWARE study conducted in three of the worst flood-affected UCs of Umerkot revealed that 87 percent of the water sources are highly contaminated and injurious to human health, as they include up to 92 percent of bacteriological contamination, up to 5,500 parts per million of total dissolved solids and up to 400 nephelometric turbidity units of turbidity in the water samples collected and analysed by the association.
Good work Akbar Sahib, keep it up.
Stagnant water still creating worse in above mentioned UC and there is still no plan from government to recover these areas, health situation too critical…. Agricultural land is also under water and owners are also under psychological, as well economical crisis….
Dear Ali Akbar,
You have raised a very important issue related to basic right of safe drinking water and sanitation in rain flood affected parts of Umerkot. The solving of the issue is core responsiblity of Government authorities but we know they don't care about their responsiblities till any media group or protest being lodged against them. The civil society and all responsible citizens are with you in this noble cause regarding provision of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities to common people. We also appreciate the contribution of PAKISTAN TODAY for focussing on such alarming issues of common interests.
Besides this i would suggest that where the recovery phase end there we should create enabling environment for Scaling up community Led total sanitation
For those who are new to subject i am pleased to share below information
The CLTS approach
Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)
is an innovative methodology for mobilising communities to completely eliminate open defecation (OD). Communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation (OD) and take their own action to become ODF (open defecation free).
At the heart of CLTS lies the recognition that merely providing toilets does not guarantee their use, nor result in improved sanitation and hygiene. Earlier approaches to sanitation prescribed high initial standards and offered subsidies as an incentive. But this often led to uneven adoption, problems with long-term sustainability and only partial use. It also created a culture of dependence on subsidies. Open defecation and the cycle of fecal–oral contamination continued to spread disease.
In contrast, CLTS focuses on the behavioural change needed to ensure real and sustainable improvements – investing in community mobilisation instead of hardware, and shifting the focus from toilet construction for individual households to the creation of “open defecation-free” villages. By raising awareness that as long as even a minority continues to defecate in the open everyone is at risk of disease, CLTS triggers the community’s desire for change, propels them into action and encourages innovation, mutual support and appropriate local solutions, thus leading to greater ownership and sustainability.
CLTS was pioneered by Kamal Kar (a development consultant from India) together with VERC (Village Education Resource Centre), a partner of WaterAid Bangladesh, in 2000 in Mosmoil, a village in the Rajshahi district of Bangladesh, whilst evaluating a traditionally subsidised sanitation programme. Kar, who had years of experience in participatory approaches in a range of development projects, succeeded in persuading the local NGO to stop top-down toilet construction through subsidy. He advocated change in institutional attitude and the need to draw on intense local mobilisation and facilitation to enable villagers to analyse their sanitation and waste situation and bring about collective decision-making to stop open defecation.
CLTS spread fast within Bangladesh where informal institutions and NGOs are key. Both Bangladeshi and international NGOs adopted the approach. The Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank played an important role in enabling spread to neighbouring India and then subsequently to Indonesia and parts of Africa. Plan International, WaterAid and UNICEF have become important disseminators and champions of CLTS. Today CLTS is in more than 20 countries in Asia , Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
CLTS has a great potential for contributing towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals, both directly on water and sanitation (goal 7) and indirectly through the knock-on impacts of improved sanitation on combating major diseases, particularly diarrhoea (goal 6), improving maternal health (goal 5) and reducing child mortality (goal 4).
In addition to creating a culture of good sanitation, CLTS can also be an effective point for other livelihoods activities. It mobilises community members towards collective action and empowers them to take further action in the future. CLTS outcomes illustrate what communities can achieve by undertaking further initiatives for their own development.
Background information on CLTS
Kamal Kar with Robert Chambers (2008) Handbook on Community-led Total Sanitation. IDS and Plan International also available in French, Spanish, Hindi, Bengali
Kamal Kar (2010) Facilitating Hands-on Training Workshops for CLTS- A Trainer’s Training Guide (English and French)
Petra Bongartz and Robert Chambers (2009) Beyond Subsidies- Triggering a Revolution in Rural Sanitation
Robert Chambers (2009) Going to Scale with Community-led Total Sanitation: Reflections on Experience, Issues and Ways Forward
Bongartz, Petra, Musyoki, Samuel Musembi, Milligan, Angela and Ashley, Holly (2010) Tales of Shit: Community-Led Total Sanitation in Africa, Participatory Learning and Action 61, London: International Institute for Environment and Development
Kamal Kar and Petra Bongartz (2006) Latest Update to Subsidy or Self Respect. Update to IDS Working Paper 257
Kamal Kar and Katherine Pasteur (2005) Subsidy or Self-Respect? Community Led Total Sanitation. An Update on Recent Developments . IDS Working Paper 257
Kamal Kar (2005) Practical Guide to Triggering Community-Led Total Sanitation. IDS. Also available in Chinese , Arabic and Spanish
Kamal Kar (2003) Subsidy or Self-Respect? Participatory Total Community Sanitation in Bangladesh . IDS Working Paper 184
Katherine Pasteur (2005) Community Led Total Sanitation as a Livelihoods Entry Point – A Brief Introduction
Favourable and Unfavourable Conditions for Community Led Total Sanitation
Assainissement pour tous Pilote par la Population Local (CLTS summary in French)
Awakening: The story of achieving total sanitation in Bangladesh (WSP) Part 1 and Part 2
Ten Steps to Total Sanitation (WaterAid)
Regards,
Mohammad Tahir
CLTS Facilitator/Expert
Integrated Regional Support Program(IRSP)
0912582080
03135188044
03459041639
Fax-5824804
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
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