How WaterAid got water to communities in Jigawa

In Jigawa State, most of the communities have little or no access to clean and safe water. This situation led WaterAid to introduce the Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) initiative in the state.
 Currently, the initiative is being implemented in 58 communities and their programmes have been impactful. Speaking to Daily Trust recently, the Head of WASH in Maigatari Local Government, Alhaji Shehu Suleiman, commended the effort of WaterAid for intervening in these communities, stating that WASH has opened their eyes to good hygienic practices.
“WASH has been very helpful to our communities and their interventions have made a lot of impact in the lives of our people with the various projects they have implemented, before now we didn’t see anything wrong with open defecation but with the coming of WASH a lot of awareness have been created on the danger of such practices.”
Outlining some of the projects undertaken by WaterAid, Suleiman said WASH has successfully completed over 1,222 hand pumping, motorized and solar water project in Gindin Kura, Dantakare, Kankaran Shetima and Kaugama.
“In the area of water, WASH has done tremendously  well they have also provided some toilet facilities for some communities. We on our own part have been sensitizing our rural people to ensure that they make provision for toilet and  keep their surrounding clean to promote good hygiene. We need a change of attitude for us to enjoy these intervention, our people must begin to know that open defecation is not healthy and contribute to more than 60 percent of the diseases we find in our communities,” Suleiman said.
The village head of Kankaran Shetima,  Alhaji Bulama Inusa, said his community has embraced the initiative brought by WASH noting that because of the awareness created by WASH in his community, every house hold now has a toilet facility in its compound “before the coming of WASH to my community my people didn’t see anything wrong with open defecation but today they are now aware of the danger of open defecation and in our community we are not leaving anything to chance, we now have some people who volunteer to be monitoring the compliant to hygiene practices in the community and they meet every week to carry out sanitation in the community, they are organized under the WASH committee which is part of the WaterAid initiative.”   
WaterAid Nigeria as a charity organization has being intervening and implementing programmes and projects in affected states to help address the issue of water and sanitation challenge in rural communities.