By protecting the environment and promoting hygiene behavior, we want our children and grandchildren can be a bright generation in the future,” said Pak Dwi, the Head or RW 02, Sukun urban village, Malang city. in carrying on his duties, Pak Dwi has a noble aspiration to improve the environmental condition in his neighborhood.
The environmental condition in RW 02 ,Sukun urban village is quite apprehensive. This neighborhood is inhabited by around 500 households (HH) and 100 HHs of which live on the banks of the river. They live in houses that are very close to each other in a very limited land. With that condition, they do not have septic tanks and directly dispose their domestic wastewater into the river without any treatment. In addition, awareness and public concern about hygiene behavior is poor, that is why diarrhea diseases are quite often occurred there.
In 2014, the USRI program conducted the development of communal wastewater treatment plant, also known as IPAL Communal. Unfortunately, only 20 households have been connected their wastewater pipes to this IPAL Communal, which actually has the capacity for 60 households. According to Pak Dwi, this is due to lack of initial socialization before the development, so that the community were not triggered to make a connection to IPAL. Also, there was the cost of the house connection that must be borne by residents who want to connect to the main pipe. So, those who cannot afford it, did not connect their house to the IPAL Communal. The IPAL maintenance cost was also not provided, so that the function could not be optimized.
To overcome this, the head of RW 02 together with head of RT 05 and his staff collaborate with the local health cadres and started conducting dissemination activities supported by USAID IUWASH PLUS. The dissemination activities that had been conducted were related to safely managed sanitation and water supply, hygiene behavior, hand washing with soap in school doing by children which can be an example for their parents or adults to follow and become a culture, and increasing capacity on safely managed sanitation for the households.
Supported by USAID IUWASH PLUS, Pak Dwi established the Community Based Organization (KSM) as a forum for community planning to prepare the proposals related to the solutions for environmental problems in RW 02 Sukun urban village.
“Our Community Work Plan has been proposed to the Development Planning Meeting at the urban village level. As a result, we get the attention from the Office of Public Works that will build additional IPAL Communal in 2018 and provide maintenance budget for the existing IPAL Communal at RT 05,” Pak Dwi explained.
With the attention and support from the local government, Pak Dwi and his staff, together with the sanitation cadres will optimize the existing IPAL Communal through dissemination activities to the community. “Through intensive dissemination activities, I hope the RW02 community are triggered to make a connection of their domestic wastewater to the IPAL Communal and will implement hygiene behavior, so that there are no more diseases like diarrhea, dengue fever and others,” Pak Dwi expected.
(Aris Rizqiawan/USAID IUWASH PLUS EJRO)
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