Awareness and adoption levels of ecological sanitation latrines introduced by Synod of Livingstonia Development (SOLDEV) department in traditional authority Mzukuzuku in Mzimba district in Malawi

• Main Author: John L.Z. Nyirenda
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Makhdoomi Printers 2017-01-01
• Series: Global Journal of Medicine and Public Health
• Subjects: Adoption; Ecosan
• Online Access: http://gjmedph.com/uploads/O3-Vo6No1.pdf
• ISSN: 2277-9604; 2277-9604

Synod of Livingstonia development department (SOLDEV) started implementing community water and sanitation project in Mzimba district in 2002. Ecological sanitation promotes personal hygiene and use of human manure for fruits and crops production. The research was conducted to assess awareness, coverage and adoption levels of the ecological sanitation latrines in Traditional Authority Mzukuzuku in Mzimba District. The assessment engaged cross-sectional and observatory approaches in the quantitative paradigm. The structured questionnaire was used to conduct interviews with the adults in the sampled villages; targeting heads of households. Many people; 92.3%, heard about ecological sanitation while 45.6% had satisfactorily defined ecological sanitation in simple terms. The coverage of basic sanitation latrines is 58.9% and that of ecological sanitation is 25%. Furthermore, the results showed that 33% of the households have ever used compost manure from the human faeces and 76.8% of the household accepts use of human manure for fruit and crop production. The results suggest that awareness is not adequate and adoption levels are low. In brief, awareness has to be improved so that many people have adequate knowledge about ecological sanitation. It is also suggested that the promoters be added and accessibility to construction materials should be improved for promotion of coverage and adoption of ecological sanitation latrines in the district. Despite low adoption levels, the project contributed to introduction of Ecological sanitation latrines and improvement of sanitation standards and coverage of latrines in the impact communities.