CHAD / SANITATION

It was only when they arrived at the hospital, their son already dead, that Annour and his wife found out what had killed him: food or water contaminated with faeces had given him cholera. Since that day they have been on a campaign to bring better sanitation to their village and keep it cholera-free. UNICEF

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:05:20
• Production Date: 28 May 2012
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND - UNICEF
• Subject Topical: HEALTH; NUTRITION; HEALTH SERVICES; DISEASE PREVENTION; DISEASE CONTROL; DISEASES
• Geographic Subject: CHAD
• MAMS Id: U120528b

Description

STORY: CHAD / SANITATION
TRT: 5.20
SOURCE: UNICEF
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / FRENCH / CHADIAN ARABIC

DATELINE: 10 FEBRUARY 2012, CHARI-BARGUIMI, CHAD

Shotlist

1. Various shots, village life
2. SOUNDBITE (Chadian Arabic) Annour Abderahim, father:
“It was a night in April 2010, our child began to vomit and have diarrhoea repeatedly. We gave him water, thinking that it would pass but it went on. No one in the village health centre knew what it was. So we decided the next morning to take him to the hospital in N'Djamena, but he died on the way.”
3. Various shots, water being pumped
4. SOUNDBITE (Chadian Arabic) Annour Abderahim, father:
“They told us it was cholera and they told me to treat the water and to clean all the utensils he used and all of the places he had been sick with chlorine and to bury his dirty bedding and clothes. But for me this wasn't enough, so I went to a workshop where I got to understand how cholera is transmitted and the importance of hygiene. I began to sensitize people in my village.”
5. Various shots, Amina talking to women
6. SOUNDBITE (French) Amina Ramadane, Healthy Home Healthy School:
“We show them faecal matter and food and they see the flies going from the faecal matter to the food and the food to the faecal matter, and it’s done. Some people even begin to feel sick and people rush off and start building their own latrines.”
7. Various shots, latrine in village
8. SOUNDBITE (Chadian Arabic) Mahamat Seid, villager:
“I'm blind and can't see anybody, so when I went outside to go to the toilet, I couldn't see who was there and who was looking at me, that's why I decided to build my own latrine. And before no one knew that our diseases came from the faeces outside, but with this project everyone now knows and our village is clean, you can even walk without shoes. So thanks to Amina and thanks to this project. I hope it can succeed in other villages too.”
9. Various shots, water source in village
10. SOUNDBITE (French) Amina Ramadane, Healthy Home Healthy School:
“'Healthy home healthy school' promotes hygiene in families. With families we do community sensitization, we go from family to family to sensitize people about hygiene best practices and then we give them supporting documents to help them like bleach, chlorine for water and a little bit of soap to clean hands when they get out of the toilets and then we give them drums to keep drinking water.”

Storyline

Chad has one of the lowest rates of access to safe drinking water and sanitation services in the world. The shortfall plays out in recurrent epidemics of diseases like polio, meningitis and persistently cholera.

Rural areas still linger far behind and children living here are always at risk. Last year there were more than 17,000 cases of cholera in Chad and 459 deaths.

But the village of Fadje was protected and unaffected. Annour Abderahim and his wife lost their son to cholera in 2010 and have since been on a campaign against the killer disease.

SOUNDBITE (Chadian Arabic) Annour Abderahim, father:
“It was a night in April 2010, our child began to vomit and have diarrhoea repeatedly. We gave him water, thinking that it would pass but it went on. No one in the village health centre knew what it was. So we decided the next morning to take him to the hospital in N'Djamena, but he died on the way.”

It was only when they arrived at the hospital, their son already dead, that Annour and his wife found out what had killed him and how he must have caught it. Bacteria from open defecation had found their way into the groundwater or into their food. They decided to take action.

SOUNDBITE (Chadian Arabic) Annour Abderahim, father:
“They told us it was cholera and they told me to treat the water and to clean all the utensils he used and all of the places he had been sick with chlorine and to bury his dirty bedding and clothes. But for me this wasn't enough, so I went to a workshop where I got to understand how cholera is transmitted and the importance of hygiene. I began to sensitize people in my village.”

The workshop was run by UNICEF in partnership with 'Healthy schools, healthy homes', an NGO that promotes hygiene practices. It is part of a community-led total sanitation approach to improving sanitation and hygiene practices in rural areas. It’s an approach that works with and empowers local communities to stop open defecation and to build and use proper latrines.

Sessions are also held in villages and communities are educated about diseases and the links to sanitation and hygiene practices

SOUNDBITE (French) Amina Ramadane, Healthy Home Healthy School:
“We show them faecal matter and food and they see the flies going from the faecal matter to the food and the food to the faecal matter, and it’s done. Some people even begin to feel sick and people rush off and start building their own latrines.”

Of the thirty villages Amina worked with in 2011, twenty have already reached one hundred percent coverage in terms of latrines. The communities themselves impose their own rules and in villages like Fadje, it’s compulsory that every household has a latrine and that every member of the family uses it.

And after building latrines, most families have moved on to other hygiene practices such as hand washing with soap and water chlorination, critical barriers to water borne disease transmission. It has made a huge difference to people's health. Despite repeated outbreaks of cholera last year, Fadje did not have a single case of the disease.

The latrines also afford communities improved privacy and dignity. Mahamat is blind and for years was forced to do his ablutions without knowing who was watching, but after the project visited his village, he, despite his blindness, dug his own latrine.

SOUNDBITE (Chadian Arabic) Mahamat Seid, villager:
“I'm blind and can't see anybody, so when I went outside to go to the toilet, I couldn't see who was there and who was looking at me, that's why I decided to build my own latrine. And before no one knew that our diseases came from the faeces outside, but with this project everyone now knows and our village is clean, you can even walk without shoes. So thanks to Amina and thanks to this project. I hope it can succeed in other villages too.”

The project is being implemented in eight regions across Chad, and since it began 202 villages have achieved one hundred percent latrine coverage across the country and with it cleaner, healthier living conditions.

Chad still has a long way to go if it’s to reach the MDG target of halving the percentage of its population without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. But through education and sanitation, through the work of UNICEF and people like Annour and Amina, the country is saving lives one clean village at a time.