5 May - Zimbabwe: the responsibility for a clean environment lies with everyone, not only with service providers

 

National Clean-Up Exercise, Mobilising against
Cholera

The social mobilization group, a sub-unit of the Health and
WASH clusters, was formed to support scaling up hygiene
promotion nationwide. Oxfam, Unicef and WHO are lead
agencies supporting the Ministry of Health in its efforts to
ensure a cleaner environment for today's and future generations.
The social mobilization team supports a broad scale movement
to engage people’s participation in achieving awareness and
behaviour change to prevent cholera. The team will endeavour
to involve all segments of society; decision and policy makers,
opinion leaders, bureaucrats and technocrats, professional
groups, religious associations, the private sector, communities
and individuals. The principle of community involvement is
critical to empower individuals and groups for action.

This group of sanitation ambassadors is among many other
activities mobilising for the establishment of a National Clean-up
day. Experiences elsewhere have shown that if organized well
and supported at policy level this could be an answer to the
mounting sanitation challenges in most urban areas in Africa.
Those who have travelled to Uganda where a national clean-up
day has been declared report that people take the exercise seriously
and all other essential services stop to pave the way for the clean
up. If as a foreigner you have to travel on the day, you may find
no transport because everyone is expected to be cleaning. One
visitor to that country said they had to book into a hotel close to
the airport so that once the clean up is finished, they could
easily rush to the airport to catch their flight.

This exercise has shifted responsibility for a cleaner
environment to everyone as opposed to just the service
providers. It then means that even individuals take responsibility
of their environment.

We in Harare used to have a “Keep Harare Clean” slogan which
over the years has been relegated to the archives, but we
believe it is time to revive our clean cities campaign. With the
advent of cholera in our cities the call can not be over
emphasized. The social mobilization group is the beginning of
such a movement and the Institute of Water and Sanitation
Development is proud to be part of this process.

Sanitation is dignity, aluta continua.

Read the 2009 third issue of the Institute's of Water and Sanitation Development (Zimbabwe) newsletter here.