Japan builds low-cost toilets

Comment & Analysis
BY INDIANA CHIRARA JAPAN has poured in close to US$3 million towards a water and sanitation programme that will see the construction of 580 pit latrines and 400 boreholes in five districts.

The project, being jointly implemented by International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, is in response to the 2008 cholera outbreak that killed over 4 000 people countrywide.

 

Villagers in the Marange district of Manicaland said the Blair toilets and boreholes had changed their lives after the cholera epidemic left a trail of deaths in their area.

“We no longer have cases of cholera in our area,” said Paul Maponde, a headman in the Chief Marange area.

“This has brought relief to us because we lost a lot of lives during the time when we did not have boreholes and proper toilets.”

About 10 boreholes and 30 toilets have been built at Mafararikwa High and primary schools in the area.

Albert Mutsutsuru, the Mafararikwa High School headmaster said: “The initiative is most welcome as we are now assured that our children are safe, because last year we lost some of them to cholera due to lack of proper water and sanitation.”

Red Cross Zimbabwe secretary general Emma Kundishora said districts in Midlands, Mashonaland East, West and Matabeleland would benefit.

Yoshiro Doi, the first secretary in the Japanese Embassy said the project was one of the many ways his country was trying to assist disadvantaged communities in Zimbabwe.

A major contributing factor to the severity of the  2008 cholera outbreak was the collapse of Zimbabwe’s public health system.