Written by: Phurba Sange Moktan
He looks elderly by appearance, but the energy he posses is not less than that of youths. With age, he has crossed more than 5 decades, but he can overtake anyone on foot. At the time people refuse to talk about shit in the village, he became shit president and he is Mr. Moti Krishna Shrestha from Thampaldhap VDC, Sindhupalchowk. He feels pleasure to the chosen one.
About a year ago, VWASHCC has been formulated in the VDC with the facilitation of the local NGO, entitled, CDECF (GSF/UN-Habitat parter) and the campaign has been initiated in the VDC. Unlikely other local leaders, he found the issue “Open Defecation” as prime concern for the village development and key to make the village clean and healhy. “Nobody wanted to take the lead for the ODF Campaign in the village. Then, I realized if we really expect change then we should take lead. And I took the lead in Thampaldhap as Shit President to clean all the open defecation habits and mindsets of the locals.” He said.
“Now I have realized that we can use our toilets with maintenance. We saw it damaged but pans and pits were very fine when we cleared the toilets.” These kinds of statements now have arising by many communities. Marking National Sanitation Week-2072 (June 5-11, 2015), toilets revival Campaigns has started in two VDCs (Irkhu and Sipapokhare) with the 30 Sanitation Volunteers’ team from UN-Habitat (local and from Kathmandu). During the campaign, more than 100 toilets were revived in a week with simple maintenance/renovation and spread message to more than 800 HHs that toilet revival is the possible and is also the best way to promote sanitation and stop open defecation.
