Africa-Press – Ghana. On January 8, 2015, Madam Mary Assa rushed her nine-year-old daughter to the Bongo District Hospital after the young girl had complained of fever, stomach ache, and vomited for days.
After some laboratory tests, the doctors diagnosed the young girl with typhoid fever and admitted her for a few days while administering some medications.
“I couldn’t stop crying,” Madam Assa recalled. “The doctors said it was because of dirty water and food because we used to defecate openly on our farmlands where we cultivate food crops and vegetables.”
Typhoid fever, caused by the bacterium Salmonella Typhi, spreads through contaminated food and water, poor sanitation, and unhygienic conditions.
In Madam Assa’s community of Asaloko, a suburb of Bongo, open defecation was the norm. Almost all houses in the community were without toilets or household latrines, and human waste littered the environment, bushes, farmlands, and other places.
Flies hovered and settled on food, water sources were exposed, and sickness was a common visitor to many households in the community.
Apart from that, for many decades, the community, comprising 60 houses and 1,050 households, predominantly subsistence farmers, was always littered with plastic waste, which significantly affected crop yields in the area.
A turning point
However, the story of Madam Assa and other members of the community has changed in the last seven years, thanks to the intervention of WaterAid Ghana, a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) focused organisation.
Under the WASH for Public Health project funded by the Global Affairs Canada, the organisation introduced the community to the health dangers of open defecation, improper waste disposal, poor sanitary conditions, and the benefits of building household latrines.
The organisation worked with local leaders, including Assembly Members, elders, opinion leaders, and households, through awareness creation, meetings, and training sessions, sparking a shift in mindset that laid the foundation for lasting change.
Aside from that, WaterAid Ghana also constructed a solar-powered mechanised water system for the community to provide potable water and help address the acute water shortage that existed in the community for several years.
The intervention also established and trained a Water and Sanitation Management Team (WSMT) that empowered the youth in the community to lead the sanitation efforts in the area.
According to Mr Atinga Abelwine, the Head of the Asaloko community, the intervention has transformed the community from a once dirty area to the cleanest village in the Bongo District.
“Before, we didn’t see anything wrong with defecating in the open and used to free ourselves in the midst of our crops and in the bush during the dry season. We were only worried about people seeing our nakedness,” Mr. Abelwine said.
Ownership and communal spirit
Unlike some communities that wait for external enforcement or aid, Asaloko took ownership of the sanitation agenda and ensured that there was no house without a toilet facility.
The residents, using available local materials and free labour from the youth of the community, constructed toilet facilities in their various houses, and by the end of 2016, every home in Asaloko had a functioning toilet facility, a feat many communities still struggle to achieve.
In 2019, the Asaloko community was declared open defecation-free by the Bongo District Assembly, and the community has maintained the status to date.
Aside from that, the community has also instituted monthly cleanup exercises in which the residents, with the exception of the elderly and persons with disabilities, participate to clean the environment and their surroundings.
A visit to the community by the Ghana News Agency revealed that apart from every house having a toilet facility, the surroundings were clean and not a single piece of plastic waste was found.
“We clean the environment on the first Saturday of each month and everybody participates and that is why you cannot see any plastics around,” Mr Atiah Agebire, Chairman of the WSMT, told.
“During funerals, we gather the next morning to clean that particular house and everybody participates. If you fail to participate, you are fined,” he emphasised.
Community by-laws
The youth, in consultation with the elders of the community, enacted and enforced community by-laws that compelled every household to construct a household toilet facility.
According to the Chairman of WSMT, the disciplined nature of the residents ensured that the community ended open defecation and poor sanitation practices.
“There are currently four houses that we have cut off from our community because they refused to reconstruct their toilet facilities when the first ones they constructed got damaged.
“So, we have nothing to do with them, we don’t attend their funerals, we don’t socialise with them, and they don’t benefit from anything in the community anymore,” Mr Agebire added.
Apart from that, the community has also instituted another by-law that bans any household without a toilet facility from fetching water in the community, and this has compelled every household to own a latrine.
The community has also instituted a fine for people who break the law by defecating in the open or littering the environment, charging from GH₵40.00 to GH₵60.00.
Mr Jerry Nyaaba, Secretary of WSMT, told that people were caught and charged accordingly, saying, “For example, in 2017, we caught one community member defecating in the open and we charged him GH₵60.00.
“The fines, together with the monthly maintenance bill of GH₵5.00 that each household pays every month, are always channelled into the community WSMT account, which is used to maintain the water system.”
Role of the youth
Mr Nyaaba, who is also the Secretary of the Asaloko Youth Advocacy Group, noted that the youth of the area played a critical role in intensifying education among the residents and enforcing the community by-laws.
“It is the youth who are leading the campaign and enforcing the laws. We clean the fetching points and the environment, and anyone who breaks the laws is forced by the youth to honour the punishment,” he added.
According to the Secretary, the major challenge currently facing the community is a lack of a healthcare facility in the area, adding that the youth had been advocating and appealing to the authorities to construct a health facility to improve healthcare access.
“We are non-partisan when it comes to the development of the community,” he said.
Asaloko community: a model worth emulating
According to a World Bank report, it is estimated that Ghana loses US$290 million annually due to poor sanitation, which affects healthcare, reduces productivity, and has other related consequences.
Additionally, the country loses US$79 million each year as a result of open defecation, while 3,600 people die every year from diarrhoea alone.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly Goal 6, emphasise achieving universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water, adequate sanitation, and hygiene for all by 2030.
With less than five years to the SDGs deadline, it is imperative to prioritise achieving Goal 6, which has the potential to influence the achievement of other goals.
Interestingly, the journey and success story of the Asaloko community is a powerful reminder that ending open defecation is not just about toilets, it’s about mindset, community will, and local enforcement.
Mr Abdulai Mumuni, the Bongo District Environmental Officer, commended the Asaloko community for their resolve and resilience in ending open defecation and ensuring proper sanitation practices, adding that “it is worth emulating.”
He said the community was in the process of becoming a sanitised community and added that the community was a learning model for other communities in the district.
“Apart from their own community, they have cleaned the district capital before, and we have brought other communities to learn from them, and we are beginning to see changes in those communities,” he added.
Source: Ghana News Agency
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