Earth Report - Clean Living Part 2

World Water Day Earth Report- Clean Living Part 2

 
 
Thursday March 20^th: to mark World Water Day 2008 – as well as the International Year of Sanitation - this week’s Earth Report returns to Ethiopia. TVE has been tracking development in Ethiopia for over 24 years now, since the devastating 1984/5 famine that launched ‘Live Aid’ and the massive global aid response it triggered. But 24 years on, 40 million Ethiopians – half the total population - still don’t have access to a toilet, and the government acknowledges that almost half child deaths are linked to poor sanitation and hygiene.
 
But now Ethiopia’s government has ambitious plans to change this – reducing child mortality and ensuring all Ethiopians have access to a toilet by 2012. According to the Ethiopian Health Ministry, the number of Ethiopians who had access to a toilet increased from one in 10 in 2002 to just over half - 51 per cent – in 2007. Over the next five years, the government wants to ensure every single Ethiopian can use a toilet. Earth Report travels across the country to find out just what they are doing to meet their target.
 
Earth Report Clean Living Part 2 is broadcast on BBC World at the following times (all times quoted as UK time zone currently GMT):
 
Friday 21st March - 20:30, with repeats at 10:30 on Monday 24th March, 15:30 on Tuesday 25th, and 02:30 and 08:30 on Wednesday 26th.
 
For more information on programme schedules in local time zones visit www.bbcworld.com
 
 
Building latrines is part of the Ethiopian government’s strategy to halt diarrhoeal disease. But just building latrines won’t produce a revolution overnight. The government needs to change Ethiopians’ attitude toward using toilets too.
 
To make sure everyone has access to a toilet, the government is relying not just on local leaders to change Ethiopians’ attitudes to open defecation - it’s also working with women because they are the ones with the largest say in their families’ health and welfare. As a result, the government is employing an army of 24,000 female health extension workers, all trained in health, hygiene and sanitation.
 
As well as health benefits, latrines can provide other side benefits: one very simple toilet is called an ‘arborloo’ - a simple pit that costs less than US$5. When full, the old pit is the perfect fertile home for a young tree.
 
In a suburb of the capital Addis Ababa, another type of latrine addresses both the growing urban pollution problem as well as the need for cooking fuel.  Human sewage, as well as organic material, is put down the latrine into a chamber where bacteria break down the waste, producing biogas – a clean fuel which can then be piped to the communal kitchens.
 
 
“With proper hand washing you can prevent about 45% of the diseases communicable through faeces.”
Kebede Faris, World Bank, Water and Sanitation Program
 
“Now we have these latrines, we can use them for a lot of our domestic waste. Using firewood is smokey, it dirties the house, and makes our clothes smell. The biogas is far better.” Kelemula Legesse
 
“The International Year of Sanitation, for us, I think it’s a great opportunity to augment whatever initiatives we have started.  We have to make sure that our villages are free of open defecation.”
Shiferaw Teklemariam, Ethiopian Minister of Health
 
 
Clean Living Part 2 was produced with the help of the UK Department for International Development (DFID); UN Water; UNICEF and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.
 
TVE distributes Earth Report programmes for broadcast and educational use globally and works with its Partners to distribute programmes for use in countries across Africa, Asia & the Pacific, and Latin America & the Caribbean – to schools, colleges, universities, NGOs, environmental agencies and other ‘multiplier’ organisations.
 
Contacts and information:
 
For further information on the programme, production team and issues raised look up www.tve.org/earthreport
 
DFID’s work on water and sanitation www.dfid.gov.uk/mdg/water.asp
 
UN Water www.unwater.org/
 
Unicef’s work on water www.unicef.org/wes/index.html
 
Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council’s work www.wsscc.org/
 
 

If you do not wish to receive TVE Press Releases in the future, please email tve@tve.org.uk, with “unsubscribe” in the title.