One of the biggest social issues in the Camp Luka, Kinshasa is that people do not have latrines. Those who have ones are built in bad conditions. As result, some times there is a little bit of exposure because the toilets are made of sacks. For the majority of the people, to relieve themselves they go outside under trees or nearby buildings.
Since the Community Health Evangelism (CHE) program started in 2008, committees and trainers have been working to mobilizing the community to come up with solutions, but in vain.
But last year, success. First, the CHE trainers had to do home visiting so that every family will be aware of the situation. Secondly, another team of CHE trainers and committees visited churches, schools, and hospitals. Third they organized a two day workshop for key leaders of the community. Finally they had to come up with a model of latrine that can be cheap and useful to everybody.
The campaign of awareness went well. There was a good response from families, students and local leaders. The workshop took place from July 25 to July 28th, with a good participation. Also, the community came up with local initiatives to raise funds for the training.
All these efforts ended up paying off. For the first time everybody in the community as convinced that they should do something about this situation. Parents decided find means to help build new latrines. Key leaders decided to even build latrines in schools and hospitals. Most importantly, they all adopted the new model for their latrines and came up with creative ways to finance them.
On July, 30th, the whole community gathered to share this new discovery. Key leaders challenged the community to change their behaviour and a committee for following up was presented to the community which was led by two CHE community members. Above all, they were so grateful to the Lord for bringing the CHE program to their community.
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