The Asutifi North District Assembly (ANDA) has organised a three-day training workshop on the Basic Sanitation Information System (BaSIS) for stakeholders to help capture and analyse information on the implementation of the Rural Sanitation Model and Strategy (RSMS), as part of the Asutifi North Ahonidie Mpuntuo (ANAM)-Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme.
The exercise, supported financially and technically by World Vision Ghana (partner) and the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources respectively and held at Kenyasi, capital of the District, was attended by 20 participants.
The District Chief Executive (DCE), Anthony Mensah, stated that the introduction of the WASH initiative had yielded remarkable sanitation results for the residents, and with this, the assembly, with its partners, had vowed to equipped all those who matter to execute the roadmap as designed.
According to him, the training/workshop is of a great interest to the assembly and its partners, because those mandated to manage the initiative, which aims of ensuring that by 2030 residents will have potable and accessible water with the best of sanitation, irrespective of where one is located, need know much about data collection in the modern way to suit the district, regional and national levels.
Anthony Mensah urged all the participants to take keen interest in the training, in order to help expedite the ultimate goal of the ANAM-WASH initiative, which is to improve water and sanitation in the district. He, therefore, thanked all the partners for their assistance.
The Lead Facilitator of the training, Tsekpetse-Akuamoah Kweku, walked the participants through the substance of RSMS linked to the concept of BaSIS, and explained that now Community Led Total Sanitation(CLTS) was the new approach to achieve better sanitation, which promotes innovation and commitment within the community, and also motivates them to build their own sanitation infrastructures.
Tsekpetse-Akuamoah Kweku said, with this, the communities would not solely depend on hardware subsides from any external agencies. This model focuses the sanitation behaviour changes via the process of social awakening, rather than constructing toilets.
“CLTS entreats an integrated approach to achieve and sustain Open Defecation Free (ODF) status in communities,” he stated.
He further introduced them to the pillars of RSMS, which include enabling environment, demand creating using CLTS, facilitating supply (sanitation marketing), capacity building, monitoring and evaluation.
The pillars made them understood that BaSIS had become a monitoring and evaluating sanitation programme designed to help in the implementation of the CLTS at all levels and provides a detailed and thorough overview of the sanitation system.
Ive W. Appiah, who is also a member of the facilitating team, expressed that in simplicity the programme is designed for the compilation of data from approved sources in the form maps, charts and tables, based on certain sanitation index.
According to her, this would assist governments, politicians and investors to easily make decisions at different levels, because it offers users a more visualised approach by viewing sanitation data.
Ive Appiah introduced them to the ODK tool, where an application via Google playstore was downloaded to make everyone get the orientation on the components of BaSIS (websites and mobile phone application) through the appropriate use of each feature.
Both facilitators and participants visited communities like Abenako and Aboagya Nkwanta to collect data via their smart phones, which have the installation of the ODK application. In all, 61 persons were confronted by the team to have their data in accordance with the new way of data collection on sanitation-related issues.
The 20 participants came from the District Planning Office, Education Directorate, District Environmental Health Department, Department of Community Development and Social Welfare, Civil Society Organisations, and the Office of the CLTS.
The post ANAM-WASH Programme in Ahafo gets major boost appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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