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Inculcating a positive attitude to sanitation

KORAPUT: It’s more of a fun to cut nails for Kumari Jani, a student of Std.V in the UP School at Banasil in one of the most interior pockets of the tribal-dominated Dasamantpur block of Koraput district. Younger children in the residential school are her friends now for she cuts their nails too. Babrubahan Das, headmaster of the school, thanked UNICEF for having supplied the sanitation kit for the children in this part of the world. Children, till a few days ago, were scared to use the sharp blades to cut their nails and very often proffered to go without it and had been gathering more dust and dirt. The sanitation kit had more things to use including two toilet soaps, a mirror, one bottle of antiseptic lotion and much more to develop a positive behaviour towards sanitation, he added. The school has received seven sanitation kits and the ‘health ministry’ in the ‘school cabinet’ takes care to ensure that all the children in the school use them regularly, Sanjukta Maniyaka,Std IV student, said.

According to Prasant Kumar Das, the DPC of DPEP at Koraput, the sanitation kit had played a major role in protecting schoolchildren from getting ill particularly when people in the entire Dasmantpur block were suffering from diarrhoea. The children were not going out for toilet in the open field and were washing their hands properly at the time of the need and moreover collected drinking water from the filter, he added.

These were supplied to schools of the block by UNICEF in addition to cleaning gloves, plastic aprons and sheets, Ringer lactate infusions, disposable needles and syringes to the hospitals to bring the diarrhoea situation under control, Sunil Verma , Programme Communication officer of UNICEF , who was at Koraput recently, said. Apart from providing technical resource support to the district administration, the UNICEF had made arrangements for the supplies of essentials like Halogen tablets and ORS packets .

Under the extension of the social mobilisation campaign 75 volunteers were being engaged in the diarrhoea-affected region of Koraput district, he added.

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