L-R: Girish Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, Hypo Homecare Products Ltd, Mrs. Akowonlehin Victoria, Senior Director, Community Development Service, NYSC- Lagos State Camp, Dr. Nicholas Igwe, National coordinator, Organised Private Sector in Water Sanitation & Hygiene (OPS-WASH) during commissioning of 6 units toilets facility to Ideal Girls School, Surulere under Hypo Toilet Rescue Volunteer Project in partnership with NYSC.
Hypo Toilet Cleaner in conjunction with the National Youth Service Corp and Organized Private Sector in Water Sanitation and Hygiene OPS-WASH officially commissioned the first set of rescued toilets being nominated by Corp members across 3 locations in Lagos.
Earlier in the year, Hypo toilet cleaner launched a community development service initiative – Hypo Toilet Rescue Volunteer program in partnership with NYSC at the orientation camp, Lagos to encourage youth Corp members to further get involved in community development support to reduce open defecation in Nigeria. The requirement was to register as Hypo Toilet Rescue volunteers and be on the lookout for public facilities e.g schools, healthcare centres, community facilities which might require urgent intervention and Hypo Toilet Cleaner will step in.
Couple of months down the line, several entries were received and have been taken up by the brand team. The first set of commissioning of 24 units toilet happened in 3 schools namely; Ideal Girls School, Surulere; Satellite Town Nursery and Primary School 1 and Central School, Okota, all in Lagos state. Present at the commissioning exercise were management of Hypo Homecare products Ltd, led by the Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Girish Sharma, management of NYSC Lagos and representatives of Organised Private Sectors in Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (OPS-WASH).
Insight from OPS-WASH states that open defecation has an economic, social, and health impact on national development. Nigeria loses about 1.3% (N455 billion) of GDP annually due to poor sanitation and a third of that cost is from open defecation. More than 100,000 children under five years of age die each year due to diarrhoea; of which 90 percent is directly attributed to unsafe water and sanitation.
Currently, Nigeria ranks tops amongst the countries practicing open defecation globally, which is why proper and deliberate intervention must be established.
Speaking at the commissioning exercise at Ideal Girls School, Dr. Nicholas Igwe, National coordinator, Organised Private Sector in Water Sanitation & Hygiene (OPS-WASH) he said “when you look at all the Sustainable Development Goals from the 1st to the 17th, it is all about partnership, looking at what’s happening here today, NYSC partnered with Hypo, Hypo partnered with OPS-WASH to provide these important facilities, However, without these how can good education be guaranteed for our children, so on behalf of OPSWASH, we congratulate Hypo Toilet cleaner Management for all they have been doing”.
“One thing is to build facilities, and another is sustainability, the need for products that will help sustain cleanliness and hygiene cannot be overemphasized, which is where the brand comes in actively” he said.
According to Mr. Chidera Anele, Hypo Toilet Cleaner, “Over 82% of the schools we have, based on WATERAID statistics do not have access to clean/ safe toilets or water for Sanitation. We are grateful to NYSC, and all the Toilet Rescue volunteers for supporting the brand in implementing this safety management sanitation service to humanity through their active involvement in looking out for dilapidated facilities within the community and nominating them for refurbishment”.
“These are the first set of rescued facilities since the involvement of NYSC and we are overjoyed to have saved over 2,000 Nigerians from openly defecating,” he concluded.
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