In 2014 the Masvingo District Water and Sanitation Committee working with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) selected Tibarere’s village for the elimination of open defecation under a Swiss funded project to improve water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in rural Zimbabwe.
“Before we began this program, people were relieving themselves in the bush. This resulted in a lot of diseases because of poor hygiene. But now, following the support from the government of Switzerland through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) every home has a latrine. Anyone caught relieving themselves in the bush is reprimanded,” said Tibarare.
Open defecation continues to be a big challenge in rural Zimbabwe. According to the 2014 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, a third of households in the rural parts of the country do not have a toilet facility and individuals defecate in the open, exposing themselves and others to various diarrhoeal and water borne diseases.
“Before the rural WASH programme, people in the community would wait until sunset to relieve themselves. They were ashamed of being seen walking to the bush. There was no dignity at all,” says Tibarere.
The rural WASH programme educated communities about the importance of safe sanitation and hygiene and encouraged them to construct their own toilets using basic and locally available resources through the Demand Led Sanitation approach.
Tibarere took it to mobilize the community to contribute $1 per household towards buying a bag of cement for each of the households in his village who did not afford. While Tibarere was the bricklayer for the toilets – the community also provided poles, grass and empty plastic bottles that were used for the construction of the toilets.
One of the beneficiaries of the toilets, Susan Mugoya aged 40 and a mother of four says her family used to fall sick due to poor hygiene but now it’s a thing of the past and they now have more time to engage in livelihood activities instead of being ill all the time.
At the end of 2016 Tibarere’s village was one of ten villages in Masvingo province that were officially declared free of open defecation.
“I feel very proud of to have a village which is open defection free. As a leader, l feel that I have an obligation to help uplift the lives of the community l lead. I am thankful to the Government of Switzerland for supporting this noble project,” said Tibarere.
