Since time immemorial, Kano Plain in Nyando sub-county has been a flood zone whose perennial floods affect the over 800,000 people who live there.
When this happens, waste finds its way into the water and leads to outbreak of water borne diseases. It is for this reason that the region has been leading in cholera outbreaks each time it rains.
This is, however, now a thing of the past following concerted efforts against open defecation in the region courtesy of Kenya’s First Toilet Ambassador Tom Omullo.
Omulo was given the title in 2012 by the then Minister for Public Health and Sanitation Beth Mugo following his efforts to make the sub county an Open Defecation Free (ODF) area.
“I took on this role after I received training that made me realise what was causing our people to die.
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Many times, we had blamed witchcraft for our people’s death including brother’s. But I realised cholera was the reason we were loosing lives,” he says.
Omullo started community mobilisation work in 2008 to help locals maintain high standards of hygiene.
“This is the day we made a declaration that everyone must have toilets in their homes and a work plan was developed on how to get the villages to become ODF,” he says.
He was appointed coordinator of a 15 member committee in Kalwande clan where they decided that every home must have a rake, toilet, good drinking water and garbage collection points.
He then took the same training to primary schools and this paid off as the students began educating their parents on the importance of having a toilet at home.
“Residents were given whistles to blow whenever they saw a person helping themselves in the open and the people were tipped to react to the whistle by running to catch the victims and discipline them,” he says.
Within two and a half months of doing this, Kalwande - a village with 910 homesteads had been sensitised and everyone had a toilet. The few that did not have were asked to be helping themselves in toilets owned by their neighbours.
Omullo’s success in Kalwande led the local public health officials to work with him in reaching the rest of the sub-county. Omullo once again applied these same principles and Nyando was declared as having achieved ODF status in 2008.
“Cholera is a preventable disease, I want to see the whole constituency and even the whole country achieve ODF status,” Omullo says.
