COMMUNITIES should make cleaning up of their environments an everyday activity and not only wait for the National Clean-Up campaign day.
The National Clean-Up campaign was launched in 2018 and five years later, the practice should be part of everyday activity of Zimbabweans, with results being evident in cities, towns and rural business centres.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa launched the National Clean-Up campaign in December 2018, basing it on moral persuasion and urging all citizens to clean up their environments every first Friday of every month. The benefit of the campaign is to help reduce pollution and waste in the
environment. Against the backgrounds of threats from climate change, the clean-up campaign also raises awareness about the importance of keeping the planet clean and health, reducing pollution, preserving the biosphere, protecting endangered species, while helping to preserve the earth’s natural resources.
By cleaning up litter and other types of waste, communities can prevent them from entering waterways and harming wildlife and polluting the air. Community participation in the country-wide programme promotes long-term positive change, forcing people to think about changing their behaviour. Keeping public areas clean promotes health and hygiene in public spaces and prevents and controls the spread of communicable diseases, while maintaining a sanitary environment for the public.
And last week stakeholders showed that they are heeding President Mnangagwa’s call to action that there should be no compromise to service delivery as they take steps in fight against cholera. In this regard, Chegutu councillors were tasked to assist in working on removing the hotspot cholera tag for Chegutu District.
This came out during a District Water and Sanitation Sub-committee (DWSSC) workshop. DWSSC members were concerned about the repeated mention of the
cholera outbreak as having started in Chegutu. Although largely true, the councillors said statements such as this had however created a negative impression of Chegutu as a district.
The workshop equipped the DWSSC stakeholders with knowledge on coming up with a district WASH Master plan that speaks to WASH activities both for urban and rural communities. Timothy Fred from the Rural Infrastructure Development Agency, RIDA, (formerly DDF), highlighted that all councillors should be able to know all WASH assets life
cycle costs – that is the initial cost, service cost, planning and maintenance costs, operating costs, and disposal cost of all WASH activities in their wards. He said that it is imperative for communities to know how much a borehole costs, and at what point in time it is going to be replaced, the costs of solar panels, solar pumps and so forth, and when to replace them as this gives them a sense of ownership and appreciation for the assets in their wards.
The WASH Master planning is guided by NDS1 on the national level and by SDGs on a global level. He advised DWSSC members to deliver district WASH Master planning and make people enjoy WASH services. The district should never be called a cholera hotspot area but be a cholera-free district, he stressed. In response, the Chegutu Rural District Council chairman for Social Services, Councillor Charles Mugwagwa, said: “I accept the challenge brought up by Mr Fred and within this five-year term, the negative tag on Chegutu District will be a thing of the past.”
The seminar comes just at the right time – soon after President Emmerson Mnangagwa launched a blue print called A call to action, no compromise to service delivery: First stage of interventions to modernise the operations of Local Authorities towards a 2030 Vision.” Councillor Mugwagwa encouraged all local authorities not to tolerate any issues that will derail them from providing good service delivery for a cholera- free country.
He thanked development partners, WeltHungerHilfe (WHH) and Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe (FCTZ), who organised the workshop together with the
Government in a bid to provide WASH services to communities. He called upon all stakeholders and development partners to support WASH
activities. Rural communities are encouraged to construct toilets. They are further advised to have clean homesteads that have refuse pits, pot racks, handwashing facilities that people use after visiting the toilet.
The handwashing facilities can be easily made from plastic bottles popularly known as “chigubhu gear” or tippy-tap in rural areas where buckets with taps may be expensive for some community members. They are also encouraged to practise waste management by separating waste that decomposes from waste that does not decompose, such as plastic bottles, and to liaise with the Environmental Health Officers in their respective wards on how they can generate money from plastic bottles and cans. – Rural Communication Services
Source New Ziana
