Water

Country Water Action: Indonesia
Educating Kids for a Healthy Future
February 2009

By Cezar Tigno
Web Writer

By teaching children proper hygiene practices, a teacher educates and improves the health of poor river communities.

Her concern for the environment and her students' health are her priorities. For 11 years, Nurhayati, or Teacher Nur has been teaching proper hygiene practices and caring for the environment to her students in communities along the Kali Malang and Sunter riverbanks in Jakarta. She also encourages residents to use the public toilets built by the government.

"The first time I came here, the children didn’t go to school, and there was no proper education on cleanliness and healthiness. Public toilets did not exist. Children and adults used the river, which flows into the Sunter, as a toilet. It looked like people did not know or understand about cleanliness, sanitation, or how to dispose of waste," Teacher Nur said.

Today, even with public toilets, the communities' onslaught to the environment continues. Teacher Nur brings her classes by the river to show her students the murky water and floating garbage as evidence of the communities' indiscreet waste disposal. Her students now know better.

"Children already understand that public showers and toilets are places to keep their body clean. Now they understand where to dispose of their wastes or wash," Teacher Nur said.

Education, like charity, begins at home. And in her students, Teacher Nur found very effective partners in her campaign to promote the use of public toilets and to spread sanitation and hygiene knowledge throughout Jakarta's river communities.

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Indonesia has about 66 million people practicing open defecation (OD), more than one-third of the country's total population. Next to India, it is the most OD-prevalent country in the world. And OD's first victims are the countries' rivers and waterways. The Citarum River, for instance, has often been called the world's most polluted river.

Jakarta, Indonesia's capital with a population of almost 10 million, obtains about 80% of its fresh water supply from the Citarum River. About 13 rivers flow through Jakarta, feeding numerous rivers and canals, like the Kali Malang and Sunter rivers, before pouring into the Java Sea. Slum communities clustered around these waterways contribute greatly to the city's severe water pollution. Sewage collection is poor, if not nonexistent.

Because access to safe drinking water and sanitation has become difficult, health became a major social issue as people faced increased vulnerabilities to waterborne and water-related diseases, particularly children. Diarrhea alone claims almost 100,000 babies' lives every year.

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Residents of the slum communities along the Kali Malang and Sunter riverbanks, who obviously cannot afford the most basic sanitation facilities, dispose of their wastes directly into the waterways. This is why Teacher Nur believes persistent lessons on basic hygiene and sanitation practices are more important than ever.

"It is for their own benefit. When children have proper education about cleanliness, they will still remember their lessons even when they become independent adults."

At school, Teacher Nur's students wash their hands and brush their teeth together, while singing songs about hygiene and cleanliness. But her greatest accomplishment is that her students bring the lessons they have learned in school into their homes and share them with the entire household.

Since the government built the public facilities, Nurul, a girl and one of Teacher Nur's students, and her mother have been using them everyday. "I'm happy living here. I've got many friends, and we go to school and we have public toilets," Nurul said.

However, it will take more educators like Teacher Nur and more children like Nurul to end open defecation in Indonesia. Meanwhile, the health of poor river communities along the Kali Malang and the Sunter remains vulnerable.

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The public toilets are not enough. Nurul and her mother have to stand in line for hours before they can use the facilities. Furthermore, some public toilets require a certain fee and most poor families have to scrimp for the costs.

Nurul said, "I must pay 500 (rupiahs) to take a shower and another 500 to use the toilet. If it's full, we shower outside. My mother pumps out water from the deep well."

In 2008, in line with the United Nations’ Year of Sanitation, Indonesia launched a National Strategy for Community-Based Total Sanitation, which aims to provide 10,000 communities with access to clean water and sanitation by 2012. ADB, through its Water Financing Program, is also working with the Indonesian government on increasing sanitation coverage in the country.

Nurul hopes her household and community will be among those that will receive benefits from these initiatives. "I wish for a big toilet with lots of water and one that's free," she said.

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