Kashuni Camp, Chad - 16 Nov 2005 -
Well over a year has passed since the International Rescue Committee constructed a water treatment plant in the Chadian Sahel Desert, transforming the turbid, murky waters of Lake Cariari into clear, clean, drinking water. Each day now, the IRC provides water to the 30,000 refugees living in Kashuni Camp (also known as Oure Cassoni) in northeastern Chad, trucking 360,000 liters to 21 distribution points within the camp.
But providing clean water is not the IRC environmental health team's only task. Informing people in the cramped and dusty camp about sanitation remains one of the most important jobs, and it is, in many ways, as challenging as making water in the desert. The IRC has trained a team of nearly 30 local sanitation workers who will spread the message of personal hygiene to the camp population.
We can make clean water, and we can build latrines, but that is not enough to maintain the health of the camp - you have to do the rest, IRC environmental health manager Michael Amatta stressed to his team in a recent training session.
The three-day hygiene promotion training consisted not only of lectures, but brainstorming and discussions on how to improve sanitation within the camp.
In addition to having his staff map out all the water and sanitation points in the camp and discuss future initiatives, IRC's public health manager in Chad, Boakai Ngaima, talked about the relationship between improper hygiene and the spread of disease. Using pictures, songs, and clapping from his native Liberia to color his lecture, Boakai stressed the importance of communication.
You need to open yourself to the community and the families so that they can be open with you and discuss their problems, he said.
Normally reserved for schools which had been closed for a holiday, the green-sheeted classroom provided essential shelter from the desert sun, and as a strong wind beat against the tent flaps, a debate raged inside as to whether or not fever is a disease.
Like when you see clouds in the sky, and you know that it will rain when you have fever, you know that something is not correct in your body. So fever is not a disease but a symptom, Boakai said.
How would you spread the message of proper hygiene? Boakai asked the group.
I will consult with the community, and I will go tent-to-tent, a young trainee responded, rewarded by his peers with a half-dozen, vigorous Liberian handclaps.
The trainees took notes, debated concepts and translations, and at the end of the third day, they proudly accepted training completion certificates.
Bokhil Dabou Hashime, one of the newly certified hygiene promotion and environmental health agents, was particularly enthused. Speaking carefully and emphasizing his English by tracing words with his finger on the table, he explained, Here we learn skills and gain knowledge, and we are able to help our communities.
I will go to the mothers because it is the children who don't properly use the latrines. And the mothers will listen to us because they will understand how diseases can spread to the children. And the children will listen to their mothers.
It can be easy to think phrases like capacity-building' are just buzzwords, noted William Carter, the IRC's environmental health coordinator. But then you see something like this training, and you really understand what that phrase means. We're helping them to take care of themselves. And you see how important it is.
