No toilets for Ngami schools
Boniface Keakabetse | Monday July 7, 2014 06:59
During the just-ended full North West District Council (NWDC) meeting it came to light that scores of schools are still facing a serious lack of functional and sanitary lavatories, which force students to indulge in open defecation. The councillor for Ikoga/Sepopa Botshelo Mapa revealed to the house that students at a Mogotho primary school across the Okavango River have spent three months using the bush as a toilet. Mapa complained that this has affected students’ performance in schools.
The poor condition in the primary schools has been a thorn in the side of NWDC.
Apparently sanitation and toilets across Ngamiland schools is a serious concern as facilities are in a deplorable state from vandalism by students and lack of maintenance.
During the March council sitting an announcement was made to the effect that there will be an assessment of school toilets for maintenance, but it appears nothing has been done since.
Councillors also revealed that it is not only students who often find themselves with nowhere to relief themselves but also civil servants. The councillors complained about the lack of provision of on-site toilets for the Department of Veterinary Service staff camping at Sepopa Foot and Mouth Disease control gate. They said that despite their challenging job of containing the spread of the unending disease in the district, sanitary conditions for workers at the camp are deplorable.
Workers at the camp reportedly face the danger and embarrassment of having to visit the bush at night and during the rainy season. NWDC chairman Lathang Molonda told The Monitor that the council now has a budget for the maintenance of school buildings that includes the deplorable toilets. He said, however, the situation could be worsened by incompetency on the part of the civil servants. “Imagine a situation where a government department fails to provide toilets in a camp. This is due to incompetency,” Molonda said.
Meanwhile, the practice of open defecation is reportedly common in the Okavango sub-district and this reportedly poses a health and environmental hazard in the area. A United States of America funded Southern Africa Environmental programme has identified the practice of open defecation as pollution and a threat to the Okavango Delta.
In response to this concern, SAREP is undertaking a project called Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). The campaign educates villagers on workable solutions to build themselves toilets in an effort to attain one pit per household in the sub-district by 2015.
Access to toilets is internationally considered a basic human right and necessity. In July 2013, United Nations General Assembly designated November 19 as World Toilet Day to bring awareness about more than 2.5 billion people in the world without access to proper sanitation. Designating the day, yet to be celebrated in Botswana, the UN said lack of toilets in schools is a major reason why girls do not continue their education once they enter puberty.
More than 2,000 children reportedly die daily from preventable diseases caused by lack of toilets internationally. Lack of toilets also exposes vulnerable populations such as people living with disabilities and women to sexual violence.
However, Botswana is said to be one of the only four countries in Sub Sahara on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal for sanitation, which aims to halve the proportion of people without access to improved sanitation by 2015.