Torit State on Wednesday joined the world to celebrate Global Hand Washing Day under the theme: ‘Clean hands for all’.
Speaking during the occasion Akille Michael Ben for Norwegian Church Aid or NCA WASH Officer says the day is marked to encourage the local population to practice good hygiene.
According Michael, Africa often wastes 90 Million US Dollars in a day for treating diseases resulting from unclean hands and poor health.
‘The most important thing for us is the day to create awareness that clean hands can make us to be productive, clean hands in a social sense not in a political sense because sometimes we say clean hands and dirty hands. So when your hands are dirty for sure what we know is that when your hands are dirty you will not be productive, you will always be sick. So everybody knows that because of unclean hands in a day, Africa is spending over 90 Million to just do treatment for some of these small, small diseases that we could be able to prevent by simply washing our hands’, he stresses.
Michael Wut, Wash Advisor for Water for Eastern Equatoria tells the local population to wash their hands with soap or ash to avoid diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea.
‘Washing hands is the best way to prevent diseases like cholera, typhoid and diarrhoea diseases. Washing hands without soap is a waste of time you have to use soap or ash. Every time you go to the toilet or before eating food or before handling young children, so thank you very much for inviting us remember to wash your hands with soap’, he explains.
Wut expresses their commitment to support WASH programs in Torit State.
Meanwhile John Sebit, Torit State first Director-General in the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure, says washing hands without pit latrines risks citizens to diseases.
He calls on the local population to dig pit latrines and avoid open defecation so as to reduce spread of water borne diseases.
‘I know in Torit State is very difficult when we talk about sanitation, if you go into our homes, you will in real sense not get latrines, you cannot talk of washing hands, when we don’t have latrines build homes, if you go around your homes you will not get pit latrines there which mean we are doing open defecation, that is not good all. We don’t even think where are these faeces going, they are going to the river then we just drink and again tomorrow we shall have a lot of diseases such as water borne diseases so it is a task for us to take it as an initiative to make sure that we keep our health and our environment clean’, Sebit points out.
He calls for cooperation between the state government and partners in promoting good hygiene and sanitation in the state.
Officials were speaking during a Global Hand Washing Day at Torit Freedom Square on Tuesday