Health is priceless. Every year we witness something bad for our health, the unsanitary conditions in Kenya Commune (a municipality of Lubumbashi, DRC).

My name is Jacques Kingwezya. I am a resident of this commune, and I observe that every year during the rainy and dry seasons, there are many people who suffer from diseases related to uncleanliness.

For example, malaria and typhoid fever are caused by stagnant water and waste kept for too long in land plots, which brings mosquitos, in places such as Avenue du Marché and Mitwaba Avenue. There are also ditches that become blocked by waste that people throw away because there are no garbage bins. There is no mechanism for disposal. The population is really exposed. We are all responsible for raising awareness at a grassroots level together with the competent authorities in our commune.

Observed problems (causes):

• There are too many mosquitoes that are the basis for the disease called malaria, especially among young people between the ages of 18 and 30.
• There is also typhoid fever that can be caused by the odor of garbage.

Solutions:

• We need to raise awareness among families not to keep garbage (waste) in plots for too long;
• Raise awareness of using garbage bins or garbage bags to facilitate disposal;
• Have the department of hygiene and environment place waste bins in each commune to facilitate garbage disposal and collection, i.e., create mechanisms for its disposal;
• Distribute insecticide-treated mosquito nets to fight against malaria, especially during the dry season.

Finally, we can say that keeping garbage in plots or in our commune does not help us at all. On the contrary, we expose ourselves to diseases such as typhoid fever, malaria, and others. Therefore, the authorities must help us to raise awareness, support the population by distributing garbage bins and easily portable garbage bags to facilitate waste disposal.

Edited: Andru Shively (VUB)