Clean-up/Awareness Campaign at Pathivara

Clean-up/Awareness Campaign at Pathivara

A clean-up Campaign was organized by Pathivara Nawa yuwa Club with support of Paschim Paaila at Pathivara tole on 11^th  May 15, 2013 Saturday. There was huge participation of local youths, children, community people and team of Paschim Paaila in the program. The program was conducted in Pathivara community to raise awareness regarding proper Sanitation and Hygiene in the community.

The reason behind selecting Pathivara as our campaign site was based on present scenario of Pathivara. In that community present sanitation status was observed, it was not satisfactory.   Community was facing water related diseases in recent days. Overall objective of this campaign was to improve the existing situation and also to promote bio-sand filter in the community for safe drinking water supply.

As a part of campaign there was a meeting prior the event with Pathivara Nawa Yuwa Club. The program started from 7:30 am, all the youths were ready with brooms and sack to collect the waste in their community. There was also good participation from nursing students of Om Institute of Health Science. The team visited door to door as well to collect the waste and aware the community people about the importance of proper maintained sanitation and hygiene in their surroundings.

The program was conducted for about 3 hour which was very much effective. After the conduction of Cleanup program there was also sharing about the progress and further plans for construction of Community Bio-sand Filter. After the clean-up program the youths were so motivated that they further planned to clean Dhobi Khola which is situated in Pathivara Community. Thus the Clean-up/Awareness went very much effective with strong community participation.  

Consumer health at risk

 Consumer health at risk

Mr.Yogendra Dhungel, Food Technologist at the Department of Food Technology and Quality Control explained that food safety is interlinked with the human health; further food hygiene is all about maintaining safety and hygiene in the food chain. Speaking at the WASH Forum monthly series organized by Paschim Paaila jointly with Environment and Public Health Organisation (ENPHO) to mark the World Health day with the topic “WASH in Relation to Food Hygiene and Public Health” on 26^th April, Mr. Dhungel highlighted that access to safe water is a critical issue so it is obvious that consumers are vulnerable in respect to food hygiene and also pointed out that hygiene and safety monitoring system in Nepal is not very efficient. “We are still guided by Food Act 2023 BS which is out dated. Therefore the consumers’ health is at risk”, he added.

Linking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), food and public health, he described that water borne diseases, food borne diseases and low productivity are the main threats for public health. Dhungel opined that 4 per cent of the human diseases could be prevented by improved sanitation and hygiene.

There should not be any excuses in maintaining the food hygiene. About the query on when to maintain the food hygiene he simply answered “ALWAYS”. He explained five keys steps to maintain food hygiene;

i)        Maintain cleanliness at personal level, keep cooking utensils clean and maintain safe sanitary environment in food preparation

ii)                   Cook thoroughly

iii)                 Separate cooked food and uncooked food

iv)                 Storage at safe temperature and

v)                  Use of safe raw materials and safe water.

Participants interacted more during the questions answer session with Mr. Dhungel where he shared his experiences about the organic food hype and the misconceptions on the junk food products. He also touched upon the legal definition of the drinking water and how the water industries have been fooling the general public about its standard.

Altogether 36 participants from different institutions; Nobel college, Golden Gate Int’l College, School of Environmental Science and Management (SchEMS), Asian College of Advance Studies (ACAS), Khwopa College, Padma Kanya Campus, Tri-Chandra Campus, National Health Sciences, National Open College and Lalitpur Valley College (LVC) attended the program with great interest and enthusiasm.

Ms. Merina Shakya, the network coordinator of Paschim Paaila thanked Mr. Dhungel for his innovative sharing on interrelationship between WASH and Food hygiene handing over the token of love. The forum ended with a group photo session.

20th WASH Forum; Youth talking about Water

March 22, a day celebrated as Water day all over the world this time was marked in Nepal with a tagline “Water water everywhere but only if we share”. And Paschim paaila, an informal youth network also thought of sharing the information regarding water in the same theme via WASH forum which is a common platform for Knowledge sharing and advocacy regarding water, sanitation and hygiene and disasters/epidemics. In this forum, basically current issues, concerns and initiatives of WASH are focused along with cross-cutting issues and it even tries to address the voices of diversified youth, communities and others.

WASH forum is conducted every last Friday of English month and this time it was conducted on 29^th March 2013 at ENPHO hall, Thapagaun with the mutual effort of Paschim Paaila and Environment and Public health Organization (ENPHO).

 Mr. Ajay Dixit, Water engineer and an executive director of Institute of social & Environment transition was the key person of the forum, which was facilitated by Roshan Chaulagain. It had total of 25 participants. 

On Acting upon the theme, Mr. Dixit started his session with a question Why shall we share the water? Many participants answered that it is a basic right, and it is a natural resources. And that is why we should share water. Mr. Dixit acted like a selfish person who is not willing to share any of his property. Later on in the seminar he highlighted that people with such kind of attitude are still there in our society that is why sharing of water is being almost impossible. 

He described with control over water resources means control over power and power definitely means more & more money.

We can consider an example of a stone spout, every individual used to gather around it share water and even their thoughts. The whole notion of ancient system was to share, but now, the idea of sharing is so complicated. Now Sharing is also linked with politics, and power. The terms like social status, poverty and gender, are also imbedded in it. Sharing in not only between individual to individual but in between rich and poor, men & women, and even country to country.

He talked about history, about ancient Nepal to describe where we went wrong which is why sharing has been so complicated. We have to ensure water for everyone even for the plants, animal and all those aquatic animals as well.

On a question raised How do we share scarcity of water then Mr. Dixit also known as Paani Pandit answered first of all we need to find out is the scarcity really because there is lack of water or is it due to uneven distribution pattern. You know, sometimes artificial scarcity s also created. It all depends upon the ethos and values that guides a person that also matters the most.

He motivated youths to recognize the need of sharing and see it from different perspectives. Think innovative and get going in the direction. Lastly he suggested all the youths, “In order to empower yourself go beyond google and share what you know.”

Ms. Merina Shakya, network coordinator of Paschim Paaila thanked Mr. Dixit for his innovative sharing and for introducing all the participants with the various dimension of the term Sharing. At the end of the session she handed over the token of love. And it was ended with group photo.