By Elishamai A Ziumbwa
A partnership between local water advocacy group, Community Water Alliance (CWA) and Zambian civil society organization Africa Manzi Center (AFMAC) is equipping members of the community in Glenview with critical knowledge on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) practices.
The initiative includes a four-day workshop aimed at training borehole point officers also known as WASH promotion officers tasked with managing water access points installed under the Presidential Borehole Drilling Scheme.
In an interview with 263Chat.com, AFMAC’s Tausan Tembo said the partnership focuses on empowering individuals who regularly interact with the public to become WASH educators.
“We hope these community borehole officers will catch one or two things that they will help the community with towards the WASH area,” Tembo said.
He said the goal is to ensure the broader Glenview community begins to appreciate and adopt better hygiene and sanitation practices through the leadership of these officers.
Rejoice Nyachuru, a WASH Officer at Community Water Alliance, spoke about the importance of targeting women in these trainings.
“This partnered workshop is there to train especially women so that when they meet in borehole centres they discuss about hygiene and sanitation, thus helping in the WASH area,” she said.
Nyachuru said the officers are being taught not just the importance of clean water, but also practical purification methods like using bio-cent filters for household water.
“We have managed to train stakeholders from different sectors towards this cause and now we are training borehole officers towards the issue of having good hygiene in different households, which is key in the WASH area,” Nyachuru said.
For one community borehole officer, the training is more than just a workshop it’s a turning point.
“This is a life-changing opportunity as we are equipped with knowledge needed in working with the community towards the WASH area. Before this encounter with the CWA, we did not have knowledge on how to help the people in the community, especially in the WASH area, but this is going to change because of this knowledge we are being helped with,” said Cecilia Bhotima
The training is part of ongoing efforts to strengthen grassroots health resilience in the country by making safe water access and hygiene a community-wide responsibility.
