Seriki Adinoyi in Jos
No fewer than 20 communities of Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State, including schools now have increased access to Safe Water and Sanitation/Hygiene projects of Hong-Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).
The communities were elated when the water and sanitation facilities were unveiled and handed over to them recently through their community leaders and Principals of the beneficiary schools by WaterAid Nigeria in collaboration with Community-Based Development Non-Governmental Organisations (CBD-NGO).
The facilities donated by WaterAid Nigeria among others include; eight new Hand Pumps boreholes, four improved Hand-Dug wells, two blocks of institutional Latrines in three schools, and also rehabilitated 12 existing Hand Pump boreholes across the 20 communities
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Speaking at the event, programme coordinator CBD-NGO, Mrs. Vou Shom, said the project was focused on improving the economic lives of vulnerable rural communities, with a vision of seeing a world where everyone, everywhere has access to safe water, improved sanitation and hygiene.
She said CBD-NGO is a non-political, non-religious and non-governmental national network of over 150 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) working in several fields of human development, and that Bokkos was lucky this time around to benefit from the organisation’s laudable projects.
Responding, the Council Chairman of Bokkos LGA, Mr. Luka Makut commended the organisations that made the projects possible, especially the CBD and WaterAid Nigeria.
He urged the various communities to handle the facilities with utmost care, stressing that water, hygiene and sanitation was a vital part of human existence, especially as it concerns their health.
Makut promised that government would continue to play its role through counterpart funding in sustaining these facilities to ensure that citizens derived maximum benefits from them.
Water and sanitation are important goals under the new 17 global Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted by all United Nations member-countries at the landmark 70th UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, USA on September 25, 2015.
