Nepal: Squatter woman sold ornament to construct toilet

A squatter woman of Lamjung has constructed a toilet by selling her ornament. Jitmaya Magar of Bhoteodar VDC-8 invested her hard-earned money and sold her gold earrings and a goat to construct a concrete toilet at an investment of Rs. 10,000 [US$ 130]. She constructed the toilet [...] after Bhoteodar VDC was declared an open defecation free zone on the occasion of 10th National Sanitation Action Week, [after] the construction of toilets in 1,378 houses [...] public toilets in Krishna garden and [toilets in] six schools.

The Tenth National Sanitation Action Week (NSAW) was held from 05-11 June 2009 with the slogan of ‘we are proud of having toilets in our homes’. Sanitation Week is being celebrated in Nepal since 1977.

Experts are pushing to get the right to sanitation included in the new constitution.

The government has set a national goal to provide sanitation to all by 2017 – which would require constructing 24,000 toilets every month – but there is a shortfall of at least Rs. 24 billion [US$ 311 million] to achieve this. Currently, about 45 per cent of the population has access to toilet facility and some 14.2 million Nepali people [out of total population of 29.5 million] defecate in the open.

Source: Nepal Samacharpatra / NGO Forum, 12 Jun 2009 ; Himalayan Times , 05 Jun 2009 ; Deepak Dahal, Nagarik / NGO Forum, 05 Jun 2009