I traveled through places of Kenya. I went to Safaris, falls… I feel like Nepal can learn most of the things from Kenya. As was colonized by British and the clause of Sanitation was first pioneered by Chadwick in Britain; by john snow in London by discovering that the people are suffering from cholera because of the contaminated water so, the concept of sanitation was led all over the world and also into the lower and middle income countries of Africa, South east Asia.
In Nepal, the rural municipalities and municipalities,metropolitan and sub metropolitan city they have the best branding for the open defecation free zones. But do we think that declaration of open defecation free zone is the only solution for improving sanitation?What about its’ sustainability?
In Nepal I always had bad experience while traveling specially If i have to pee. Whether it is a public vehicle or a private, the passenger are not made comfortable to use the public toilet.
Either the toilets would be far away or may be even if you find the toilet it is dirty. Specially the places generally the drivers stopped in the way, the toilet they have are almost all filthy. They are not cleaned regularly. Sometime you don’t even find the separate toilets for men and women. Moreover, there won’t be closed container to throw the sanitary pads, toilet paper. Moreover you find the places which is written like throw the used sanitary pads at the back of the toilet where there is river.
Truly,it is annoying to see for the one who is a public health students and who always advocate for staying health and keeping the environment clean and healthy.
In contrast, may be I have been to few of the highways of Kenya. I had no bad experience in the way. I can find toilets it is not necessary that you would find it anywhere but at least if you find it, the toilets are cleaner. There is always separate toilet for men and women and the fascinated thing is that you can even find the wash station nearby the toilet. The public toilet charge some shillings but it is worth it. Because it seems clean and fresh.
In Nepal, there are 5 big highways which connects to many places. So before declaring any municipality or area to be ODF .The important thing is to ensure public toilets in accessible places and then run the program to construct toilets through house to house campaign. And finally they would surely ensure for sustainability of the sanitation in community.
The challenges are that most of the rural places still doesn’t have access to roads, could be issue for ensuring budgets.
If we can do this, we can attract more tourist. Many people can visit to any places without facing any bad experiences.
Furthermore, it is important to pull more budget for constructing more public toilets but it is not that only the government offices are responsible for it. Even the people of community can join together can construct toilets by collecting some money from the households.