Cadecom drills communities in sanitation

The Catholic Development Commission of Malawi (Cadecom) has challenged people in Blantyre Rural to use toilets to deal with problems of dysentery and diarrhoea during the rainy season.

Cadecom diocesan secretary Peter Pangani said this at the graduation of the organisation’s field officers who underwent sanitation training in Blantyre Rural on Wednesday.

The training follows surveys by Cadecom and other health organisations that people in traditional authorities (T/As) Kunthembwe and Kuntaja lack toilets.

Cadecom, which used Bwanasompho, Wisikemu and Kuseni villages, 15 kilometres away from Sanjika Palace as a case study to gauge the impact of open defecation on the health-being, discovered that waterborne diseases are numerous because communities do not observe sanitary measures.

“As we have observed that people from village head Bwanamsompho can produce as much as 168 000 metric tonnes of [waste], which ends up in water they drink later on,” he said.

According to Pangani, communities have pledged to build a toilet for each household by next month.

“For the family that will not have a toilet and use it, the village headmen will enforce stiff punishment on them,” said Pangani.

Kuntaja urged communities to report families which will not have toilets by next month to village heads.