Celebration to mark EU and Plan partnership to bring clean water and sanitation to Togo

22 December, 2011: Access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene is a huge issue in many parts of West Africa and nowhere more so than in Togo where 7 out of 10 people don’t have access to a toilet.

As part of a big water and sanitation drive, Plan and the European Union are funding a five year programme to improve access to these life-saving essentials in the prefecture of Blitta in Togo’s Central Region .

Waterborne diseases such as cholera are a major health risk in the country with the highest reported cases of illness after malaria. Many people in the poorer regions of Togo do not have access to a suitable safe water supply meaning that debilitating conditions like diarrhoea are also widespread.

“We believe that through drinking clean water and learning about sanitation our children will grow up healthy and strong,” explains Kéméalou, a mother of three from the community of Yelum Lekohan in Blitta.

Helping to save lives

The project aims to provide more than 53,000 people, the majority of whom are children and women, living in 40 communities with sustainable access to clean drinking water, hygiene education lessons and sanitation facilities.

Involving children is at the heart of the work, encouraging them to learn about basic hygiene and the importance of sanitation so that they can then go back to their families and communities and pass on the skills they have learned.

Plan and the European Union are also planning to build 70 new latrines and hand washing facilities in schools in the country in order to help keep children healthy so that they remain in school. Similar facilities are also being developed in health care centres to create a cleaner environment

"This project will bring drinking water sources for households and reduce the time spent searching for water. And it will be time saved for my studies,” explains Mazalo, a 13 year old student from Yelum Lekohan.