Faced with sanitary issues and a loss of dignity, some residents in East Port-of-Spain remain hopeful for access to proper waste disposal even while being without the basic human right for most of their lives.
Perched on the hillside homes of some residents in Laventille are structures, which, despite a recent latrine eradication programme continue to be scattered sparsely across the landscape.
In years gone by, limited access to water and funds have impacted on the sanitation of residents, like Patricia Boyce of Prizgar Lands, who for decades had been subjected to using an outhouse.
She said for most of her life she and her family have been inconvenienced: “For years I was afraid of going to the pit because of the amount of snake and all kind of things, I used to be afraid, it wasn’t nice, plus the children and them have to go as well, it was bad. It take me a lot of years and a lot of money to put a flushing toilet and I still not finished yet.”
Boyce added the area’s topography has also made it difficult to construct toilets, giving rise to the pit latrine.
Since launching the Port-of-Spain’s Peoples movement, party chairman Louis Lee Sing breathed fresh hope into residents in communities along the perimeter of the country’s capital that the efforts to eradicate latrines would be ramped up as part of a redevelopment plan for the capital.
“For 60 plus years there is a political organisation that has presided over 3,000 latrine pits within this capital city,” Lee Sing said. “Mayors came and left and they did nothing about it. We must move those latrine pits!”
According to Boyce, based on her observation there were not many villagers who still resort to using outhouses, but it has been the reality for Lyndon John, who has not had access to a toilet at his home for nearly half a century.
“I living without a toilet all my life you could say it has been such a challenge, lack of money and the general location of the area I guess have made it really difficult, but we all want improved sanitary conditions.”
Deputy Port-of-Spain mayor Hillan Morean, however, stressed the Port-of-Spain City Corporation and East Port-of-Spain development company limited have undertaken hundreds of latrine conversions over the years, improving the sanitation and health conditions of residents.
“Because of the work done by the Corporation, East Port-of-Spain development company in particular as well as RBC, we’ve been able to bring down quite a few of the numbers of these latrines in the city down to a very manageable level. So we well on the way to eradicating all that exist and not many more exist in the city and it should not be compared to any other areas that do not fall under the city for any sensationalization of the sorts.”