Preaching About Poo: Open Defecation in Sumba

By Nick Baker, Communication and Knowledge Management Officer

Reverend Charles Detha educates villagers on an uncomfortable topic. ©UNICEF Indonesia/2015/Nick Baker

A local pastor in Kadahang village, Sumba (NTT) is about to make the most unlikely of sermons. Today, Reverend Charles Detha won’t talk to his congregation about chastity or charity. Instead, he will talk about defecating.

Indonesia is in the grips of an open defecation crisis. More than 51 million people do not use a toilet. This is the second highest number in the world after India. The effect on communities and particularly on children is severe – with the practice resulting in a raft of health problems.

The island of Sumba is greatly affected by this crisis. And an issue of such scale requires innovative solutions. So UNICEF is working directly with religious leaders in this particularly devout region to help get the message out.

“We now know that open defecation is dangerous for the health of children,” says Reverend Charles, who has been participating in programmes facilitated by UNICEF that aim to put an end to open defecation. “It can give them all sorts of diseases. So we must get involved, we must speak up.”

Building Toilets, Saving Lives

By Nick Baker, Communication and Knowledge Management Officer

Vikensa Hamakonda’s future is a little brighter. ©UNICEF Indonesia/2015/Nick Baker

Ten-month-old Vikensa Hamakonda looks curiously at the latest addition to his family home. It’s an outdoor toilet built from bamboo and tin. But this simple structure may end up saving Vikensa’s life.

On the island of Sumba (NTT), open defecation has been an accepted practice for as long as most people here can remember. Unbeknownst to many, this is endangering the lives of countless children in the region.

The pathogens from faeces left in the open can easily enter a community’s food and water chain. This leads to a raft of health problems, which particularly affect children.

Around Sumba there are stories of young children dying from diarrhea  – which can be caused by poor sanitation.  It also impacts on their growth as poor sanitation is linked to high rates of malnutrition.

UNICEF is supporting a number of programmes to end open defecation in Sumba. One of these is helping local health workers to hold “triggering sessions”. Triggering sessions are health and sanitation workshops that are conducted in individual villages. They involve dramatic demonstrations of how faeces in the open can make children sick.

A triggering session was recently held at Vikensa’s village. His father, Letu, attended. “It was a very powerful experience,” he says. “I learnt how germs from faeces from outside my house could get back into my family’s food.” The final message was simple: build and use a toilet.

The event had a lasting impact on Letu. Previously, his family would defecate in a small area behind their house. But not anymore. Letu has built a toilet. And many other villagers are doing the same.

This means that children like Vikensa will help get the best possible start to life.

Sanitation in Sumba – improving day by day

- Nick Baker, Communications and Knowledge Management Officer

Sanitarian Dangga Mesa attends a village meeting in Sumba Barat Daya.
©UNICEF Indonesia/2015/Nick Baker

It’s an unusually busy morning in Matapywu village on the island of Sumba (NTT). Heads of family have been called together for an important meeting. Seats are taken, coffee is served, and the topic is announced: toilets.

Meetings on this unusual subject are now quite common around the island. Matapywu is just one of many villages that recently underwent a triggering session supported by UNICEF. These workshops aim to end open defecation practices.

Now it’s time to check progress. A sanitarian, Dangga Mesa, discusses developments since she held the triggering session a few months ago. Dangga seems pleased on the impact it had.

A better future – ending open defecation in Sumba

- By Nick Baker, Communications and Knowledge Management Officer - 

One year old Juan with his new toilet. ©UNICEF Indonesia/2015/Nick Baker

SUMBA BARAT DAYA, March 2015 – Juan Ngongo, currently just one year old, will be the first person in his family to grow up with a toilet.

Juan lives in the village of Watu Kaula on the island of Sumba (NTT). For generations, his family would defecate in or around a small river that runs just beside their house.

But not anymore. Juan’s family recently attended a triggering session in their village that was facilitated by UNICEF. During these events, health workers demonstrate how easily bacteria from faeces can enter the food chain and cause a raft of health problems.

These health problems include diarrhoea and pneumonia – which are chief contributors to more than 370 under-five deaths per day in Indonesia.

“The bed net saves my life”

By Ermi Ndoen - Health (Malaria/EPID) Officer

 Sumba Island, Indonesia, October 2014 - Martinus Lende Walu (48) counts himself lucky. Once he could have died from malaria, like two of his neighbours, but he survived. Since then he decided to not take a chance and to stay safe with the help of an insecticide-treated bed net (ITN).

His village Langgar Kampong is one of the many remarkable “stone-age” villages on Sumba Island, in Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province. It is home to some 200 people who live in 13 big traditional houses that surround megalithic tombs, each tomb belonging to a group of families. 

Travellers are drawn to Sumba Island for the houses, the megalithic tombs, the hand-woven ikat fabric, the pasola or traditional spears and horse competitions, as well as its scenic sandy beach.  But all these are overshadowed by the island’s high malaria incidence.

Oral Rehydration Salts and Zinc: Simple but big solution to save children’s lives.

Veronica became very weak
as dehydration set in
©UNICEF Indonesia/2013/Rob Patmore

It was early morning in the town of Tambolaka on the Indonesian island of Sumba when Teresia and her husband rushed their daughter for treatment. Veronica was very weak and in need of lots of fluids. When she started vomiting and having loose stools, an Angkot (mini bus) driver immediately took them to sought help at the local hospital.

Veronica is a 1.5 year old girl, who became weak with every passing hour as the diarrhea continued and dehydration set in. Her mother Teresia watched, tenderly pressing Veronica close to her, hoping to somehow save her daughter’s life.

“We were very scared and worried,” says Teresia. “We have heard that children can die from just diarrhoea,” she adds while looking at her daughter. One of the health workers arrived with a small sachet of oral rehydration salts. She was also given Zinc tablet diluted in a teaspoon of water, which will help her fight a potentially deadly case of diarrhoea.

Malaria, a mother's greatest fear

6-year-old Eta and her mother Deborah
© UNICEF Indonesia / 2013 / Rob Patmore

There is no worse feeling for a mother than to think that her child might die.Yet, in Sumba, one of Indonesia’s islands in East Nusa Tenggara, too many mothers have watched their children dying from malaria. Malaria is infected through mosquito bites which are endemic in the island.

Deborah knows too well about this feeling. Her daughter, Eta, had such a high fever one night that she was shaking. “I thought she was going to die,” Deborah recalled how horrible she felt that night.

Eta was taken to the nearest health centre where her blood was tested. It was confirmed that she caught malaria. And it was one of the worst kinds.