Life without toilet: GAMA project to the rescue
Life without toilets...
By Seth J. Bokpe
There's no place like home. And there's no toilet like your own.
---Taylor York (American Musician & Songwriter)
It is 10.15 a.m., tiny chains of smokes rise into the sky as residents of a developing community squat inside a bushy space close to a market to do what most would only do while hiding –– go to the toilet.
One after another, they arrive with newspapers, toilet rolls, and water bottles in hand. Some try to hide, but others are not bothered about being in the open to release their ‘unwanted goods’.
Minutes later, they left just as they came, only without their toiletries—just empty hands and empty bottles. But they left behind stench and excreta of all colours.
This is Ashaiman Lebanon, a sprawling community of hundreds of uncompleted buildings in the Ashaiman Municipality in the Greater Accra Region.
No toilet
Inside the Ashaiman Township itself, toilet is a luxury in many homes. Mr Patrick Dewu, a pensioner had lived in his compound house for 18 -years with his family of six without a toilet.
“All these years until 2016 that we had toilet, I used to go to the public toilet. It is about 100 years. Sometimes, the children would have a runny tummy in the night and you have to dash there. If we don’t want to go out with them, we use chamber pot and when day break, we take it to the public toilet,” he said.
Two streets away, the Korleys, a family of seven had also been without a toilet for seven years and in those years, the public toilet had come in handy but had its downsides.
“The problem is worse in the night when you want to ease yourself. In the night, we had to go and call the public toilet attendant, a woman. When she is in a good mood, she will open it for us, otherwise you have to go to another one which is further away. You can imagine what happens when your stomach is running,” Mrs Grace Korley said.
In the case of Mrs Lydia Kamasah,they had completed building their two-bedroom house for six years but the cost of digging a man-hole had been enormous so they stuck to defecating in the bush and the public toilet.
GAMA project
While the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) is fast developing, the provision of basic service has not kept pace with the rapid growth of GAMA and it is particularly affecting people living in low-income areas where entire families are crowded in single rooms in “compound” houses that usually lack basic sanitation and water services or have inadequate facilities.
As a result, most urban poor have to rely on water vendors and the use of public toilets which significantly affect their economy and their quality of Life.
Fragmented approach towards environmental sanitation in the GAMA has also led to poor - if any - levels of access to environmental sanitation services.The GAMA ,therefore, faces serious challenges throughout the environmental sanitation chain: beginning with the limited access to toilet facilities, limited wastewater and septic sludge collection and transportation, lack of operational wastewater and sludge treatment facilities, inadequate solid waste collection from low-income areas and absence of adequate solid waste disposal facilities.
It is these ills of urban development which brings with it open defecation and other waste management challenges that the GAMA Sanitation and Water Project was born to cure.
It covers 11 Metropolitan/Municipal Assemblies (MMAs) which is home to over 3.6 million people.
The objective of the project is to increase access to improved sanitation and improved water supply in the GAMA, with emphasis on low income urban communities and to strengthen management of environmental sanitation in the GAMA.
The project is expected to benefit at least 250,000 people living in low income communities in the GAMA who will gain access to improved sanitation and water service. The population of GAMA in general is expected to benefit from improved planning and implemental sanitation services.
Funded by the World Bank, it costs $133.7 million and covers four key components which include the provision of environmental sanitation and water supply services to priority low income areas of the GAMA and the improvement and expansion of the water distribution network in the GAMA.
The rest are planning, improvement and expansion of GAMA-wide environmental sanitation services and institutional strengthening and capacity building.
Beneficiaries and smiles
Since its inception in 2015, almost 5,700 household toilets have been constructed. Beneficiaries paid GH¢1,100 for a complete toilet and GH¢600 for bio digester, a toilet and handwashing basin.
One of the many beneficiaries of these toilet facilities is Mr Dewu. Beaming with smiles, he opened the doors of his toilet built last year and showed off what he described as “saviour”.
“Recently, when my brothers visited, I opened the place for them and they were happy. In the past, I had to send them to the public toilet. The public toilet is very dirty and the scent too stays on you all day.So I had put aside a particular shirt for it. As for this one, I can wake up at night and enter, do my thing and go to bed” he added.
Living in a compound house of 32 people, Mrs Korley and her co-tenant, Mr Ernest Asomaning could not hide their excitement, describing their toilet as “freedom” from night treks to public toilets and runny stomachs.
Mrs Kamasah, whose house was fitted with a digester, saving her and her family the cost of constructing a man-hole which had kept their home without toilet for six years, was also full of joy and appreciation.
As the toilets enter homes, so are toilet constructing businesses expanding. Comsans Limited is one of 15 companies engaged in the toilet construction business.
Footprints
The company’s Chief Executive, Mr John K. Armah said ever since the company joined the GAMA project two years ago, it had been able to build more than 400 toilets as of February 2018.
The company has its footprints in the Accra and Tema metropolis and the Ashaiman, Ledzokuku Krowor and Ga East municipalities.
“Initially, the demand was low because people did not understand the digester. Now demand has increased so much that we are even struggling to meet it.
“Now, people know that with the digester, you don’t need to dislodge. You don’t need to call any truck to come and empty a sceptic tank. When it is full, it is manure or black soil that you get for a garden or farm.
“The GAMA project helped our business. They have done sensitisation so we don’t have to talk a lot to get people to buy in,” he said.
He said some of the major constraints the company met included bad roads leading to projects sites, as well as lack of space in some homes to construct the toilets.
“In the old houses, they build in such a way that you can’t get any place to put the digester. In houses that there is no space for toilet, we advise that they demolish a room,” he said.
Challenges
The Coordinator of the GAMA, Ing. George Asiedu said a major challenge facing the project was that low-income communities were having challenges paying for the toilets.
“We are convincing them through various behaviour change communication approaches. Another challenge was the slow pace of construction by the small contractors. We have also dealt with this through the engagement of contractors with larger capacities. These large-scale contractors have the resources to build before they are paid,” he said.
As deadline draws closer each day to 2030 which the United Nations has set as target to meet a number of development goals, otherwise known as sustainable development goals.
Meeting goal six of the SDGs aimed at making clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere is a responsibility for all even beyond 2030.
Writer’s email: seth.bokpe@graphic.com.gh
Number crunch
Since the inception of the GAMA Project in 2015, almost 5700 household toilets have been constructed.
Caption:
One of the completed toilets. Inset: a happy beneficiary of the GAMA project express appreciation to the Chief Executive of Comsans, Limited Mr John K. Armah.
By Seth J. Bokpe
There's no place like home. And there's no toilet like your own.
---Taylor York (American Musician & Songwriter)
It is 10.15 a.m., tiny chains of smokes rise into the sky as residents of a developing community squat inside a bushy space close to a market to do what most would only do while hiding –– go to the toilet.
One after another, they arrive with newspapers, toilet rolls, and water bottles in hand. Some try to hide, but others are not bothered about being in the open to release their ‘unwanted goods’.
Minutes later, they left just as they came, only without their toiletries—just empty hands and empty bottles. But they left behind stench and excreta of all colours.
This is Ashaiman Lebanon, a sprawling community of hundreds of uncompleted buildings in the Ashaiman Municipality in the Greater Accra Region.
No toilet
Inside the Ashaiman Township itself, toilet is a luxury in many homes. Mr Patrick Dewu, a pensioner had lived in his compound house for 18 -years with his family of six without a toilet.
“All these years until 2016 that we had toilet, I used to go to the public toilet. It is about 100 years. Sometimes, the children would have a runny tummy in the night and you have to dash there. If we don’t want to go out with them, we use chamber pot and when day break, we take it to the public toilet,” he said.
Two streets away, the Korleys, a family of seven had also been without a toilet for seven years and in those years, the public toilet had come in handy but had its downsides.
“The problem is worse in the night when you want to ease yourself. In the night, we had to go and call the public toilet attendant, a woman. When she is in a good mood, she will open it for us, otherwise you have to go to another one which is further away. You can imagine what happens when your stomach is running,” Mrs Grace Korley said.
In the case of Mrs Lydia Kamasah,they had completed building their two-bedroom house for six years but the cost of digging a man-hole had been enormous so they stuck to defecating in the bush and the public toilet.
GAMA project
While the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) is fast developing, the provision of basic service has not kept pace with the rapid growth of GAMA and it is particularly affecting people living in low-income areas where entire families are crowded in single rooms in “compound” houses that usually lack basic sanitation and water services or have inadequate facilities.
As a result, most urban poor have to rely on water vendors and the use of public toilets which significantly affect their economy and their quality of Life.
Fragmented approach towards environmental sanitation in the GAMA has also led to poor - if any - levels of access to environmental sanitation services.The GAMA ,therefore, faces serious challenges throughout the environmental sanitation chain: beginning with the limited access to toilet facilities, limited wastewater and septic sludge collection and transportation, lack of operational wastewater and sludge treatment facilities, inadequate solid waste collection from low-income areas and absence of adequate solid waste disposal facilities.
It is these ills of urban development which brings with it open defecation and other waste management challenges that the GAMA Sanitation and Water Project was born to cure.
It covers 11 Metropolitan/Municipal Assemblies (MMAs) which is home to over 3.6 million people.
The objective of the project is to increase access to improved sanitation and improved water supply in the GAMA, with emphasis on low income urban communities and to strengthen management of environmental sanitation in the GAMA.
The project is expected to benefit at least 250,000 people living in low income communities in the GAMA who will gain access to improved sanitation and water service. The population of GAMA in general is expected to benefit from improved planning and implemental sanitation services.
Funded by the World Bank, it costs $133.7 million and covers four key components which include the provision of environmental sanitation and water supply services to priority low income areas of the GAMA and the improvement and expansion of the water distribution network in the GAMA.
The rest are planning, improvement and expansion of GAMA-wide environmental sanitation services and institutional strengthening and capacity building.
Beneficiaries and smiles
Since its inception in 2015, almost 5,700 household toilets have been constructed. Beneficiaries paid GH¢1,100 for a complete toilet and GH¢600 for bio digester, a toilet and handwashing basin.
One of the many beneficiaries of these toilet facilities is Mr Dewu. Beaming with smiles, he opened the doors of his toilet built last year and showed off what he described as “saviour”.
“Recently, when my brothers visited, I opened the place for them and they were happy. In the past, I had to send them to the public toilet. The public toilet is very dirty and the scent too stays on you all day.So I had put aside a particular shirt for it. As for this one, I can wake up at night and enter, do my thing and go to bed” he added.
Living in a compound house of 32 people, Mrs Korley and her co-tenant, Mr Ernest Asomaning could not hide their excitement, describing their toilet as “freedom” from night treks to public toilets and runny stomachs.
Mrs Kamasah, whose house was fitted with a digester, saving her and her family the cost of constructing a man-hole which had kept their home without toilet for six years, was also full of joy and appreciation.
As the toilets enter homes, so are toilet constructing businesses expanding. Comsans Limited is one of 15 companies engaged in the toilet construction business.
Footprints
The company’s Chief Executive, Mr John K. Armah said ever since the company joined the GAMA project two years ago, it had been able to build more than 400 toilets as of February 2018.
The company has its footprints in the Accra and Tema metropolis and the Ashaiman, Ledzokuku Krowor and Ga East municipalities.
“Initially, the demand was low because people did not understand the digester. Now demand has increased so much that we are even struggling to meet it.
“Now, people know that with the digester, you don’t need to dislodge. You don’t need to call any truck to come and empty a sceptic tank. When it is full, it is manure or black soil that you get for a garden or farm.
“The GAMA project helped our business. They have done sensitisation so we don’t have to talk a lot to get people to buy in,” he said.
He said some of the major constraints the company met included bad roads leading to projects sites, as well as lack of space in some homes to construct the toilets.
“In the old houses, they build in such a way that you can’t get any place to put the digester. In houses that there is no space for toilet, we advise that they demolish a room,” he said.
Challenges
The Coordinator of the GAMA, Ing. George Asiedu said a major challenge facing the project was that low-income communities were having challenges paying for the toilets.
“We are convincing them through various behaviour change communication approaches. Another challenge was the slow pace of construction by the small contractors. We have also dealt with this through the engagement of contractors with larger capacities. These large-scale contractors have the resources to build before they are paid,” he said.
As deadline draws closer each day to 2030 which the United Nations has set as target to meet a number of development goals, otherwise known as sustainable development goals.
Meeting goal six of the SDGs aimed at making clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere is a responsibility for all even beyond 2030.
Writer’s email: seth.bokpe@graphic.com.gh
Number crunch
Since the inception of the GAMA Project in 2015, almost 5700 household toilets have been constructed.
Caption:
One of the completed toilets. Inset: a happy beneficiary of the GAMA project express appreciation to the Chief Executive of Comsans, Limited Mr John K. Armah.
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