SHILLONG: The North East Slow Food and Agro-biodiversity Society (NESFAS) in collaboration with the District Water and Sanitation Mission (DWSM), East Khasi Hills, organised a State-level orientation programme on open defecation free (ODF) status, at the Gurudwara, Sikh Centre, in the city on Tuesday for 43 communities from across Meghalaya.
The congregation was facilitated by Mark West Kharkongor, District Coordinator, Water & Sanitation Mission, who has been active in mobilizing the villages within his reach, towards achieving the ODF status.
Kharkongor started off the programme saying, “No one can define cleanliness with a single definition; it is relative”.
Using his renowned, unique practical approach in addressing rural sanitation issues, Mark saw to it that the orientation should be ’embedded in the head and not just on your note-pad’.
Calling upon two volunteers, he handed them two bags each and told them to put clean items in one bag and dirty ones in the other. He said that if the bag with dirty items gets filled faster than the other one, it suggests that the area is dirty. The same exercise can be applied at the community level.
Kharkongor further stated, “Campaign on cleanliness starts with water”, before he ventured into the topics of water & sanitation. He gave a practical demonstration to emphasize that cleanliness and dirt cannot co-exist, by dropping a dirty stone into a glass of clean water.
Kharkongor’s orientation style resonates his belief that if a change should start at the personal level. He further emphasizes this by asking, “If one can spend on mobile recharges regularly, why can’t one spend on building toilets?”
The programme came to an end with Kharkongor listing three criteria for each village to be open defecation free – Toilets, Clean Water and Garbage-free.
On an ending note, Kharkongor stated, “There is no such thing as waste. The things we call waste are the ones we don’t need. But tell me is there any waste that cannot be reused? We can even make use of the sewage or the nitrogen rich urine”.
“Most of our sanitary problems are due to not returning waste to nature and thus breaking the cycle. Cleanliness comes first into existence, not dirt,” he said.
This programme marks the beginning of future series of orientation on the same topic of ODF. The next plan of action would take place at the district level.
The 43 communities which attended the programme will partner NESFAS in hosting the upcoming International Mei-Ramew (IMR), scheduled for November 2015.
