Food and water are inevitably an integral part of our
lives. A healthy living requires a constant access to clean water and balanced
food. They are necessities which people could go any extent to have. One other
important part of our lives which as Ghanaians, we haven’t really given much attention
to is the disposal of our human excreta; something we can’t do without. A tour
around communities would reveal a rather poor state of scarce toilet facilities.
Limited availability of places of convenience has,
for years now, made some people resort to inappropriate places like the beaches,
bushes and garters. For members of my community, a suburb of Accra, open
defecation, either at the beach or the bush becomes a suitable option. Elderly
persons and children go to those places to avoid joining long queues and seeing
filthy things before one leaves for work or school. Children, who manage to get
to public toilets without money, are often sacked. Even when they manage to get
to the facility and join queues, some adults usually overtake them claiming their
reputation and dignity will be at stake should it happen that they soil
themselves.
My interaction with some pupils in four public basic
schools in some parts of Accra revealed that, students are required to carry gallons
of water along to school before allowed to use school toilet facilities. Other
schools do not have any toilet facility at all. According to A Situation
Analysis of Ghanaian Children and Women launched by United Nations Children Fund,
only 48 percent of primary schools in Ghana had access to adequate toilet facilities
as at 2010. The situation according to recent reports hasn’t really changed. When
nature calls, especially during class lessons; pupils are compelled to walk for
some time to a nearest toilet facility. In the process, they lose out on
important class lessons. Some students also use this situation as basis for
playing truancy.
A child’s right to education, as stipulated in
article 28 and 29 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child,
requires that children benefit from school work. Provision of toilet facilities
in schools would go a long way to ensure quality education and thereby, the
enjoyment of the right mentioned.
We cannot under estimate the effects of limited availability
and accessibility to toilet facilities. The discomfort that stomach down turn
alone brings, especially when toilet facility is a bit far, is enough for us to
acknowledge the need to establish one in our various houses. I call on the
Accra Metropolitan Assembly to enforce its bye-laws which expects each household
to have a toilet facility. When this happens, the pressure on public toilet facilities
will reduce.
The media, as the mouthpiece of society, shouldn’t
just limit sensitization programmes on the need for improved toilet facilities
to the celebration of World Toilet Day. It should be an on-going process until
we see an improvement in sanitation and toilet facilities in particular.
As we think of what to eat, so we must think of how
to properly dispose what becomes the faeces. If you are not infected, you are
affected in one way or the other. Recent cholera outbreak in some parts of the
country was largely, as a result of poor sanitation. There is the need for
individuals, land lords and local authorities to establish or improve already
existing toilet facilities and make them sustainable.
For all young people, especially children, hand
washing with clean, running water and soap should constantly be practiced. At
least, that would place us on a safer side until we get the means to or our
parents and leaders come in to make toilet facilities available, accessible and
convenient for us.
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