How We Achieved ODF Status – Bauchi Stakeholders

BAUCHI – Following the official declaration of Bauchi Local government area of the state as Open defecation free, Stakeholders in the State have attributed the success achieved, to the collaborative effort by all.

The General Manager of the Bauchi State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA), Adamu Sabo who was speaking to a team of journalists supported by UNICEF to access the impact of the ODF status in the local government, said that currently Bauchi local government is the 9th local government that has been officially declared ODF with three more local government areas waiting in the pipeline.

According to him, the whole process started through community mobilization to stakeholders such as community and religious leaders, leadership of the local government as well as advocacy visits to relevant stakeholders in the communities.

“We had engagements with all the 1,400 communities in the local government where we educated them on the dangers of open defecation. We now took a collective decision to stop open defecation through the construction of improves latrines.

“Apart form the sensitization of stakeholders, we recorded success at the local and community level. At the local government level, we have the WASH unit where we have principal officers that usually go for the implementation activities and community mobilization. At the community level, we also have the WASHCOM, the local hygiene promoters, these are structures that drive the entire process at the community level.

“Again, there is also the aspect of the toilet business owners who were trained on how to construct improved toilets in the communities. We realized that the construction of latrines in the past had a lot of challenges, particularly in the rainy season where the toilets usually collapse. To solve this challenge, we identified micro financial institutions who give soft loans to construct improved latrines through the Toilet Business Owners who are trained to construct improved latrines in households,” he said.

He said that another area put in place by the agency to sustain the ODF status is constant monitoring through the WASH unit who gives updated reports about the successes as well as the challenges with the latrines and all other areas of WASH in the communities.

Also Speaking in the same vein, the District Head of MIRI Community in Bauchi local government, Mallam Hussani Abubakar Othman also attributed the success of the local government becoming ODF to the continuous sensitization of citizens on the dangers of open defecation.

“Traditional rulers are one of the most powerful influencers in the community, they influence the decision of their subject to a large extent. At the community level, we hold meetings with heads of households where we educate them to prevail in their household against open defecation. This really worked because we saw the changes.

“On Sustainability, we will continue with the sensitization of the people as we have always done and work with all the relevant stakeholders and partners in this whole process to ensure that the success is maintained,” he said.