With the support of Japan’s Felissimo company, a beneficiary building latrine by himself. Photo: CWS
Some basic rebuilding in communities that were flooded last July in Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady region has improved the lives of 85 families in 2 villages of Maubin township, which is due West of Yangon.
With the support of Japan’s Felissimo company, 10 families now have safer and more secure houses to live in because basic tin roofing materials were provided to help families better protect themselves during inevitable future rainstorms. Also, these families and 75 other families now have basic, but hygienic elevated latrines, which they can use all year round – even when their villages are flooded. So now, they do not feel afraid of snakes or insect bites because they do not have to go to the forest in the night time and in the rainy season. Equally important, people, especially the girls and women, no longer feel ashamed about the bad smell of their waste from open defecation and menstruation.
The CWS team in Myanmar is really proud to help people have their dignity, so this partnership with the Felissimo company was important to them. Also, it helped them by providing a context for awareness-raising about personal hygiene and disease prevention, which helped many people think to changed their behavior to protect their health. For example, hand-washing before meals and after toilet use, and keeping latrines themselves cleaner, was seen more often as the project progressed.
Now, with a more hygienic home and behavior, families can focus on other things, like work and education, without worrying about sickness due to diarrhea or other diseases and conditions related to poor hygiene.
(For more information please contact myanmar.pm@cwsglobal.org )