Sleman people line up for 'hygienic toilet' loans

Sleman people line up for 'hygienic toilet' loans

Sri Wahyuni, The Jakarta Post/Sleman, Yogyakarta

Until some four months ago, Poniyem, 56, and many other residents
of Ledokan hamlet in Umbulmartani village, some 15 kilometers
northeast of the regental capital city of Sleman, had to rush to
the nearest river to defecate.

As a matter of fact, the nearest river in this Javanese
traditional housing complex is some 100 meters away. They still
had to pass along a dusty, narrow path and walk down the sloping
riverbank before finally being able to satisfy their biological
need.

Thanks to a loan program managed jointly by the PKK
Umbulmartani and [e] Foundation organizations in cooperation with
the provincial Health Promotion Coordination Agency (BKPK), they
now have toilets in their houses.

"Now we no longer need to hold back defecation -- if we want
to do it in the middle of the night, for example, and are forced
to wait until very early in the morning," Poniyem told The
Jakarta Post recently during a visit by a funding company.

Launched in August 2002, the "healthy" toilet loan program or
kredit jamban sehat was initially funded by the World Bank. The
fund was provided to the village in the form of a grant from the
provincial government through the BKPK.

"We received a total of Rp 15.3 million at that time and
started off providing loans to 12 poor families to build new
toilets in their own houses or renovate old ones," chairwoman of
PKK Umbulmartani Heni Kusharyani said.

Through the scheme, the selected families received Rp
1,275,000 each, with which they were required to fix up their old
toilet or build a new one. Many of the toilets that poor families
in the village had previously built were open-pit, often without
a roof or a permanent floor, much less a water reservoir.

They were also obliged to build a "healthy" toilet at least 10
meters away from the nearest clean water resource, with its own
water supply, a roof and flooring, ventilation and a drainage
system.

Provided in the form of a rolling fund with an interest rate
of 1.5 percent a month, the debtors are given two years to pay
back the loan in monthly installments of Rp 85,000. Yet,
according to Heni, as most of the families prefer to pay the
money back in installments of Rp 100,000 they can pay the lot
back in less than two years.

Of the interest drawn from the loans, one third goes to the
additional food-giving program conducted by the PKK organization
through the village's integrated service posts or Posyandu, one
third is allocated for administration expenses, and the other one
third is added to the capital.

So far, as the fund keeps rolling from one family to another,
a total of 40 families in Umbulmartani village, which has a
population of 7,500, have enjoyed the benefits of the program.
Still, many others are already lining up for the chance to have a
better toilet.

It is fortunate that through its Ford Motor Company
Conservation and Environmental Grants, PT Ford Motor Indonesia
(FMI) granted in 2004 an additional fund of Rp 22.5 million
through the [e] Foundation as a supervising non-government
organization to help the village accelerate the program.

According to [e] Foundation, the sanitation in Yogyakarta
province in general is concerning. Quoting data from the
Yogyakarta Urban Development Project (YUDP), Momon Hermansyah of
the [e] Foundation said that only 53 percent of families in the
region had proper sanitation facilities prior to the loan
program.

Of the figure, 29 percent live in rural areas, while 78
percent live in urban areas.

In Umbulmartani alone, according to Momon, nearly 900
of some 2,000 families continue to make do without healthy
toilets.

He said that the water pollution in the area would increase if
nothing was done to solve the problem as defecating in rivers had
become a local habit.

The ADB Sanitation Journal 1999, he said, had listed Indonesia
among the worst countries in Asia in terms of sanitation.

"That's why we ask the FMI to give us the same funds that it
allocated for its 2005 conservation and environmental grant
program," Momon told visiting president director of PT FMI Will
Angove last week.