Talking about clean and healthy environment means talking about canalization. In Baraka neighborhood sanitation remains a major challange. To learn more about this serious public health problem, we went to meet the Chief of district, Mr. Abdou Seye, to ask him some questions about the lack of pipelines BARAKA.
A working canalization allows a community to live in decent conditions, and brings sanitary condiditons to the population, as well as the requirements to stay healthy. According to Mr. Seye, the BARAKA district chief, the remediation challenges are an integral part of their lives everyday. At first, thanks to « ENDA THIRD WORLD » that JACQUES BIGNUCOUR found the problems of pipelines in the area. Thus he set up the pipes for discharging the waste water directly into the sea. This was very important because it helped to set up two public toilets and ensure channeling a portion of the district.
However, several years have passed, the population of BARAKA increased and the pipeline network has never been adapted since then, nor kept in good condition. This is the cause of the daily discharge of waste water in the area. In addition to this, part of BARAKA does not even benefit of this pipeline network. Since the death of Jacques BIGNUCOUR the sanitation work totally stopped.
At the moment, the population suffers greatly from the lack of pipeline, and has to dispose their sewage somewhere in the neighborhood, and pay to do it. In winter, residents are forced to leave all the dirty water they had in containers, causing unhealthy in the neighborhood. Despite this lack of sanitation, BARAKA is proper most of the time, because the population is committed to maintain their neighborhood. Therefore, young People usually organize cleaning days called « Set Setal ».
At BARAKA, no committee is responsible for the environment, however the neighborhood stays clean. Mr. Seye says that once he went to ONAS * to get to know when the district will benefit from a pipe network. He was surprised to learn that according to the authorities, the hydraulics of the sector always occupied an important place in the economic and social development strategy of Senegal, but they can´t connect us to the network, because we do not have all running water in our homes.
Today the population is very optimistic for the future of the district because « YOU FUNDATION » and its partners plan to rebuild the area, and we will have new pipelines, access to running water and a real vision of living conditions.
* = National Sanitation Office of Senegal
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