We should increase public awareness about environment, especially sanitation

Jakarta Health Department continues to promote clean and hygiene lifestyle by optimizing community-based total sanitation (STBM) program.

This program has five pillars: stop open defecation, hand-washing with soap, drinking water and food management, domestic solid waste management, and domestic wastewater management.

Jakarta Health Department's Environmental Health, Occupational Health and Sports Health Section Head, Dicky Alsadik conveyed, Health Department has distributes circular letter that instructs sanitarian in each urban village's puskesmas (health center) to carry out environmental health programs in their own regions.

"Each urban village's puskesmas has one sanitarian who will be active in empowering the locals," he said, Tuesday (1/22).

Sanitarians who have been coached in STBM program will be deployed to observing, monitoring, and empowering the locals in order to improve environmental health quality.

"We should increase public awareness about environment, especially sanitation by giving them education and socialization," he explained.

Sanitarian can build STBM team that involves the locals such as RT/RW administrators, public figures or third parties from non-governmental organizations (NGO) who want to build a partnership.

"Together with the locals, we want to find the best solution to solve sanitation or environmental health problems. In the future, Health Sub-department in each regions will also train, monitor, and control STBM implementation thus it could run more intensively," he stated.