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 BASG to make toilets accessible to PLWDs, women  

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From ABBAS GUNGURA, Bauchi

Bauchi State government has reiterated its commitment to Water Aid Nigeria towards ensuring that all categories of people, particularly, disable people, women and girls have equal access to toilets at motor parks and marketplaces without any barrier.

The Director General Bauchi State Environmental Protection Agency (BASEPA), Ibrahim Kabir, gave the assurance while speaking during a workshop organized by Water Aid Nigeria to assess a prototype of toilet designed to be accessible to women and people with special needs at the Hazibal Suits in Bauchi Thursday.

Ibrahim who described toilet as a necessity, be it private or public, recalled that the effort started few months ago when Water Aid sought for the support of the Bauchi State government on the project.

“They knocked at our door and said that they want to improve the existing situation including the design of our toilets in Bauchi State. We supported them and we posted our staff to be part of the team. They made an assessment for the past few months and finally they came up with a prototype”, Ibrahim explained.

He said that the idea came following complaints about the design of toilets that seems inaccessible to the people living with disability and women, particularly in motor parks and markets, adding that the initiative was welcomed by the state government.

While assuring government’s willingness to support the project, the BASEPA DG said government intends to invite service providers from so many companies to come to Bauchi and build many toilets.

“We will make sure that we are going to use this design by the Water Aid and give it to the service providers that are going provide the toilet facilities in Bauchi”, the DG assured.

On his part, Programme Monitoring, Evaluation and Report Officer of Water Aid Nigeria, Mr. Mashat Mallo said that the workshop was aimed at testing the impact of the prototype.

According to him, the workshop was meant for the participants to test the prototype toilet that has been designed, adding that the Impact Accelerator Innovation Project is been shouldered by the Water Aid with Counterpart Country Programme from Bangladesh, Nepal in collaboration with Water Aid Australia.

Mr. Mashat said that the innovation idea is basically to provide toilets that women, girls and people living with special needs can access in public places without barrier.

He said that the WaterAid Nigeria is pushing for a user centered design of public toilets by working with the government, Ministry of Environment, the Bauchi state environmental protection agency (BASEPA), RUWASA as well as Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) media, CSOs, Disable Persons Organization in Bauchi.

Mashat pointed out that the idea is to come up with designed toilets that women, girls and persons with disability and everyone can use without worries.

“What we have done so far is that we have engaged with government and together we conducted safety audit in few selected toilets in Bauchi and with the findings from that, we engaged a consultant at a prototype workshop in December where we presented the findings”, he said.

Mashat added that the participants who include the users, women, persons with disability, the government, toilet business operators, motor parks and market leaders were in attendance to look at the findings and assessment and make suggestions on what needs to be improved upon to close the existing gaps.

Mashat expressed gratitude that the designer has succeeded in coming up with a prototype design of the toilet including a short animation video of the use of the toilet and its physical model.

“Today, we came back here with all the stakeholders like I have mentioned, to reflect on the design as a way of testing it. And as you can see, at the end of the , the users, the toilet business operators accepted this prototype design as a way to go, and also, the government officials have also given us their commitment by acknowledging the project as a worthwhile investment which is aimed at improving access to toilets in line with the Nigerian vision of becoming an Open Defecation Free (ODF) country in 2025 and attaining the entire SDG Goal 6 by 2030.

“That will lead us to a design of public toilet in Bauchi that women, girls and all people can use without concerns. And that, the government will take particularly the BASEPA which is responsible for enforcement to work with public toilet operators to ensure that these toilets are available in public places”, he said.

 

 

 

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