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Lenten Stories: Week 3

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Water and sanitation for communities in West Java, indonesia

Improving water and hygiene in communities throughout West Java by promoting the provision of safe drinking water and the construction of pit toilets in rural areas, is a crucial building block for long-term sustainable development.

Masna’s family, like many Indonesian families, face problems of poverty and limited access to education and health services. Before the program began most houses in Masna’s village did not have basic toilet facilities and were forced into the surrounding fields and lanes, resulting in poor health, diarrhoea and the transmission of parasites and gastro-intestinal diseases. The staff of the water and sanitation project operate as part of a mobile team, visiting villages on foot to educate communities and households on the health benefits of building simple pit toilets and improving the quality of drinking water. The project team explain to villagers the benefits of improved sanitation and how a pit toilet and designated toileting area drastically reduced the spread of disease.

Talking candidly with often shy villagers, who are reluctant to discuss these issues, community health workers trained by the project ask villagers to plot their regular toilet activities. From this they calculate how much mess would be made in a year times the number of people in the village to illustrate the scale of the problem.
Villagers are then encouraged to make a commitment to digging a pit toilet for each household.

Community water groups have also been established in the Pandeglang area to educate about the need for improved hygiene practices to prevent the spread of water-borne diseases. Villagers are taught about the benefits of washing their hands with soap before eating, after toileting and after playing.

In Masna’s family neighbourhood most households have recognised the health benefits of having a pit toilet.
Since the water and sanitation program began in Pandeglang there has been a marked decrease in the recorded cases of diarrhoea, especially in children under the age of two years.

“We now get clean water in our house through a hose pipe which my husband installed. Six months ago my husband built a toilet. It has been a very big improvement to our lives,” Masna says.

Additional fact sheet: Read more about how our West Java project was implemented (168Kb PDF)

Your support
Your donation to Caritas Australia’s Project Compassion will allow communities like Masna’s to gain clean water and sanitation, enabling them to look forward to the future with improved health.