Attitudinal change holds key to clean environment

As a people, the cholera epidemic has woken us up from our deep slumber as far as our attitude towards sanitation is concerned.

Until recently that all of us, including government officials, realised that something must be done to make our environment safe, it appeared that we had all gone to sleep.

Consequently, all open spaces, including our backyards, were engulfed in filth.

For our President to jump into the gutter to send the signals to everybody to clean his or her environment meant that the situation was getting out of hand.

We are at the crossroads, and at the last count, about 200 people had lost their lives to cholera while about 20,000 had been infected with the disease that could have been avoided if we had observed personal hygiene.

Even at the peak of the disease, some of our compatriots still littered the environment in the belief that it is the responsibility of people who are paid to keep the environment clean to even clear refuse from our backyards.

From the frustrations, the government conceived the idea of a national programme to deal with the sanitation problems. 

The National Sanitation Day, a day set aside to enable the people to clean their communities and neighbourhoods, begins today.

Whatever the challenges, the day is here and we must turn out in our numbers to clean our surroundings to make the day a success.

We have said it before and we repeat, that mass exercises such as the National Sanitation Day normally fit into activities meant for photo opportunities.

In large gatherings like what is expected today, some of the people will pretend to be working when they see the presence of the camera.

Be that as it may, we think the day offers the opportunity for our people to rethink their attitude towards environmental sanitation.

The Daily Graphic believes that going forward, the exercise must become part of our daily lives in order to make the desired impact.

It will, therefore, be appropriate to get our local communities, assembly members, churches and other opinion leaders to mobilise the people for the exercise.

Our communities used to set aside a day in the week to clean their environment and engage in other communal activities.

It is refreshing that the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development has decided to make the exercise a monthly endeavour. But, it will be good if the authorities also target campaigns on behavioural change.

Let us renew values and make our communities very “wholesome” as we have done in the past.

Again, we think the government and the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) also have the responsibility for ensuring that facilities such as refuse dump sites, urinals, toilets and dustbins are provided at vantage points to avoid the situation where the people can  find a convenient alibi for making our environment unsafe and filthy, and give the National Sanitation Day a bad name in order to hang it.

However, we urge all to turn up in their numbers to clean their surroundings and communities to eliminate the garbage in our backyards and thus create the conditions that make it impossible for cholera to kill many of our people.