Kampot Santitation Could Be Model for Rural Cambodia

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Khmer Times/James Reddick

As the national government pledges access to latrines for all Cambodians within the next decade, it is looking to an unlikely inspiration: a small, rural district in Kampot province that is slated to become the first in the country to completely curb “open defecation.”

With a population of more than 80,000 people, just four years ago Banteay Meas district’s sanitation access was well behind the Kingdom’s average, with just 16 percent of households equipped with a toilet. By 2013, an ambitious project led by the Ministry of Rural Development, alongside Dutch NGO SNV, helped to make Trapeang Sala Khang Lech district the first with full bathroom coverage.

Commune chief Kob Soeun said that the key strategy of the project was to convince the more than 1,200 families in the area of the benefits of hygiene.

read more: http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/17767/kampot-santitation-could-be-model-for-rural-cambodia/