"Around 24 million families in Indonesia do not have good sanitation facilities owing to poverty, poor knowledge about the importance of health, and inaccessibility," General Mulyono, Army Chief of Staff, said here, Tuesday.
Considering this factual reality, the TNI has committed to build a million toilets by collaborating with the Ministry of Health, through its community service program called Tentara Manunggal Membangun Desa (TMMD), he revealed.
Speaking at the technical meeting of the 99th TMMD (TNIs Integrated Village Development Program) here, Mulyono noted the toilet-building program was also relevant to the governments target of eliminating open defecation in the country by 2019.
In connection with this commitment, the TNI will train 65 village supervisory non-commissioned officers (Babinsa) in the third week of May as community health educators, he mentioned.
The number of Babinsa personnel who would be trained to be community health educators would be increased to 3,520 in 2018 to support public awareness campaigns targeting families to teach them the importance of exercising sanitary lifestyle, he remarked.
The 99th TMMD program will be held from July 4 to August 2, 2017, by involving 58 companies of Indonesian Army personnel and 8,700 volunteers of related government bodies. They would be deployed to 58 districts and cities, 60 subdistricts and 92 villages across the archipelago.
Editor: Ade P Marboen
Copyright © ANTARA 2017
