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Misanet.com / IPS, 8 November - Ajegunle, a sprawling slum in Lagos, earmarked for demolition by the Lagos state government, is undergoing a revival of sorts. Ignoring the current court battle over government plans to replace Ajegunle with 10,000 new housing units, a non governmental organisation has launched an environment clean up campaign using thousands of unemployed youths. Most of the ghetto, where more than 2 million people live, lies in the swampy estuaries of the Lagos lagoon with a main canal running right through the slum. It lacks proper sewage and garbage collection systems so human, household and vegetable wastes are passed directly into the brackish waters of the lagoon. - We looked at environmental conditions of the area. We discovered that most people in Ajegunle live in shanties without toilets, bathrooms and good drainage. Inhabitants in some parts of the ghetto pass human wastes directly into the canals and water bodies on top of which their toilets and bathrooms are constructed, explains Ene Baba-Owoh who heads Clean-Up Nigeria (CUN). - Sanitation was very precarious in the area, coupled with that, a lot of unemployed youths engaged in social vices like drugs use, stealing and street fighting. We talked informally with the youths on Balogun Street where we started a pilot project and 30 of them co-operated with us, Baba-Owoh told IPS. Through the voluntary services by the 30 youths, CUN has encouraged the construction of a drainage system on the street. Construction material was donated by some philanthropists in the area. Six public toilets and bathrooms have also been built. The management of the toilet and bathroom facilities have been given over to the 20 youths who participated actively throughout the project. They charge money for the use of the toilets and bathrooms, a percentage of which they pay into the Clean-up Nigeria Waste Management Co-operative Thrift and Credit Society. Successes achieved through this initial project, have spurred the CUN to move into the 'Refuse to Riches' Project. - The scheme, Refuse to Riches, ensures voluntary cleaning of the environment, provision of employment for youths and women and curbing of social vices among hitherto unemployed youths, Baba-Owoh said. The project is supported by the Canadian Fund for Local Initiative with a grant of 26,000 dollars and has 200 participating youths who have been provided with pushcarts and tricycles which they use to collect household refuse in their communities. According to John Odije, one of the beneficiaries of the project, the glass is collected every month by Delta Glass Factory in Benin while the paper wastes are bought by two local mills for recycling. Odije, a leader of the group in Ajegunle told IPS that the manure produced and packaged by the women at the sorting centres has become a source of fertiliser for farmers in neighbouring Oyo state. - Farmers have been coming from Oyo state to buy the product from us. They use the food particles from gratted cassava roots as animal feed for pigs while the compost is used as fertiliser on their farms. We have been unable to cope with their demand for now, says Rose Imagbedan one of the 15 women involved in the project. - From my earnings I have been able to help my husband to pay our children's school fees. We now live better than before, adds Imagbedan a mother of five whose husband is a day-guard in a clothing firm here. As a former petty trader Imagbedan earned less than 2,000 naira monthly. She says she now makes as much as 8,000 naira monthly. However, money earned by the youth who benefited from the interest-free loans to purchase pushcarts and tricycles under the Refuse to Riches project is split into three parts of 20, 30 and 50 percent. Half of the 20 percent is for mandatory servicing and maintenance of facilities while the other 10 percent is put into a loans revolving scheme from which other members of the programme, who are yet to own their pushcarts and tricycles, can benefit. - The 30 percent is the actual amount or money each of the youths can go home with as earnings, while the 50 percent is the direct deductions for the facilities acquired, Baba-Owoh explained. The project has a more than 70 percent repayment rate, says Baba-Owoh. "Our main focus is to get the place cleaned up and to provide employment. We have achieved the purpose which is environmental cleanliness. Clean-up Nigeria does not get any returns from the youths for the project," Baba-Owoh said. Five hundred persons are expected to be provided employment yearly under the Refuse to Riches project. CUN also has embarked on another project to rid the community of cellophane wastes, plentiful in the country from the sale of the packaged water. The project "Environment Safe Compliant Polythene Eradication" (ESCAPE), will involve the collection of cellophane bags from the streets and major highways to designated neighbourhood collection centres. - In the first three months of 2001, we plan to remove 50 million cellophane satchets from the streets of this country, Baba-Owoh said. - Currently, Clean-up clubs have been established in schools in conjunction with UNICEF in Nigeria. There are 1,000 clubs throughout the country, geared towards entrenching behavioural attitudes of children, on public hygiene vis a vis clean environment, Baba-Owoh said. In eight schools in the six geopolitical regions in Nigeria, the project started in 1996 in Lagos and now Akwa Ibom State government in Southeast Nigeria has made it mandatory in all public schools in the state. Under the programme, club-cadets in such schools apprehend students who drop wastes indiscriminately on campus and punish them. "Sanitation in such schools was so terrible that we had to establish the clubs, but now it has improved and the consciousness is now there," he said.
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