Rewriting The Story: How Chikore Village Became Open Defecation Free

 

Portrait of Agnes in front of one of the 10 latrines she built in her village.

In Zimbabwe’s Masvingo Province in Chikore village head Agnes Chikore, 63 is working to better the lives and health of her community. She has gone the extra mile to stop the spread of diseases, such as cholera, by making sure her village is open defecation free.

Ward 27 has 42 villages, out of these, 41 villages are led by men with Agnes Chikore being the only female village head. The fearless village head, and mother of seven, tackled open defecation which was very common due to a lack of toilets, washing facilities, and sanitation knowledge. Building a latrine was never a priority among many and most could not afford the cement to build one.

“Due to this our food and water were contaminated. During the mango season, we’d have close to 20 diarrhoeal cases every week. Now we rarely have any. Our children were openly defecating near the houses and we would simply get a stick and scrape it away. We would use fields, bushes, forests, and ditches as toilets and the river for bathing. It was always embarrassing when we have visitors because we could stumble into each other at awkward moments.”.  

“Only four households had toilets and the other 26 households did not even have any latrines. As a leader who had learned about sanitation and hygiene practices, I had to do something.  I even used my bare hands to build latrines for about 10 vulnerable households out of the 30 in my village,” said Agnes. 

In 2019, 52 percent of rural communities in Zimbabwe practiced open defecation. In response, CARE International, with the support of the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP), commenced a WASH project to mitigate the spread of diarrhoeal diseases. The project targeted over 32,000 people in 64 villages with training on hygiene practices to stop open defecation.

Agnes joined her village’s Sanitation Action Group (SAG) after learning about the health risks of open defecation. She began doing door-to-door visits and meetings to educate members of her community on the risks. During these visits, she learned one of the reasons that held back her community

“Many complained that they did not have money to build toilets. As we didn’t want this to draw us back, I decided to take action. I had never trained as a builder but the need in my community was great. My late husband was a builder and I used to watch him doing his job. I then decided to practice what I had seen him do,” Agnes said.

Agnes mobilized the community members to look for available resources, such as bricks. She also asked them to source for used plastic bottles to make the vent pipe. Her efforts paid off as by the end of October 2021 the village was verified and certified to be an Open Defecation Free (ODF) village

For sustainability, Agnes set punitive actions. “We all agreed that anyone found openly defecating will be fined one goat. This is helping to maintain good health in the community.”

Agnes has set the pace for her fellow village heads; especially those living in Wards led by men. She has big aspirations for women in the province.

“I want to work with fellow village heads in training more female builders to build latrines. My wish is to see all the surrounding villages attaining ODF status,” she said.