Earthquake and disaster risk reduction in Nepal

Joglal, a resident of Sipa village in ward-3 of Tauthali VDC belongs to a poor family. His father's profession was to play Shehnai in the village and with the passage of time he learnt the art of playing shehnai from his father.  It was the only source of income with which he fed his family but with great difficulty. Leave alone going to school,  Joglal was at times unable to buy shoes which he needed as he would roam around village playing shehnai. When hand to mouth survival is a challenge, people worry about it only ignoring or paying little attention to other things like cleanliness sanitation and education.

Joglal says "Since childhood I defecated in the open. I was used to it. We in the village thought toilets are used by rich and well-off people. Poor people do not have the means to construct toilets in their home nor are they supposed to use it. I would defecate in the open and would do it in different places. Even if people would see me, I would ignore as I was used to it.  With the passage of time, the population in the village increased and with it the rate of open defecation in the village. As a result the village started becoming filthy. There would be bad odor around. Slowly and gradually we realized and learnt that toilet is used not only by rich and well-off people but by people from all walks of life use it to maintain cleanliness, hygiene and health. With this realization the need for using toilet for defecation was felt by all in the village. The local government also planned to declare the district as open defecation free. The toilets were constructed and we started using toilets".

But the earthquake in April 2015, destroyed everything including our houses and toilets. People again started defecating in the open. When PHASE Nepal came to our village, all the villagers requested the organization to support in the construction of toilet. We were living in temporary shelter and open defecation was making the environment around filthy. PHASE heeded our request and provided us CGI sheets, cement, toilet pan and rod for the construction of toilet. The contribution of the villagers was labour work.  After toilet construction the village has become clean once again. We are thankful to PHASE Nepal for their support, informed Joglal.