The Kupang district authority confirmed that Rp5 billion (some US$350 thousand) was budgeted for providing 302 sanitary toilets in the district’s 10 villages to reduce cases of poverty and stunting in the region.

“Provision of the toilets is one of the local authority’s efforts to offer proper sanitation facilities as a prerequisite to reduce stunting cases in villages in the district,” Kupang District Head Korinus Masneno stated in Kupang on Monday.

The authority has constructed toilets, with individual septic tanks, under the village sanitation programme, with funding sourced from the 2021 regional budget, he noted.

The village sanitation programme utilized local resources, labor, and technology to empower residents and enhance productivity, thereby reducing cases of poverty and stunting by increasing the residents’ daily income, Masneno remarked.

The program provided a total of 302 sanitation facilities at 10 target villages of Tunfeu, Oben, Tasikona, Oepaha, Oenif, Soba, Nekbaun, Merbaun, Kotabes, and Oenoni Il, he noted

Additional toilets were constructed in the Oenif, Tasikona, Nekbaun, and Oenoni Il villages to address prevalent stunting cases there, he added.

Provision of sanitary toilets will enhance the regional authority’s mission to reduce cases of stunting in the district and ensure that the number of sanitary toilets in the region are in line with the national standard, Masneno stated.

The district head has identified low nutritional intake and poor sanitation conditions as two factors causal to the prevalence of stunting in the district, and to this end, the local authority had adopted several measures to address the issue, including providing sanitary toilets.

Masneno expects the provision of sanitary toilets to help residents develop clean and healthy lifestyle habits and reduce the stunting rate in the district.

“The Kupang District authority targets 91.3 percent of households to have access to a sanitary and healthy toilet by 2021, and we currently achieved 89.4 percent of our target,” Masneno added.

Source: Antara News