Tacloban City – Eight KALAHI-CIDSS sub-projects in Hernani. Eastern Samar are now completed. This batch of sub-projects includes 121 sanitary toilets across three barangays, four water systems, one day care center, one drainage system, and a 70 linear meter river control sub-project. The completed structures are benefiting 1,096 households from 8 barangays.

The impact of the completed sub-projects has already been felt in the different communities. In Barangay Nagaja, 77 or 68 percent of 113 households did not have toilets but now the number of households without toilets decreased by 41%. These households can boast of the new addition to their homes.

The construction of toilets responded to the problem of rising incidences of parasitism, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems in children and adults. The barangay residents are happy over this development in their barangay. They never thought the day would come that they would have private toilets.

According to Area Coordinator Remegio Reñola, the new sanitary toilets did much to improve the morale of the people in the barangay and it is expected that gastrointestinal problems will be substantially reduced.

At the DSWD Field Office Eight, Assistant Regional Director Jaime Eclavea is optimistic that the two ongoing sub-projects, the drainage system in Poblacion One and the Day Care Center in Poblacion Two will be completed by May 27, this month. Once completed, the number of beneficiaries in the municipality will increase to 1,259 households.

Eclavea also added that more KALAHI-CIDSS sub-projects are expected to be completed this month in the different KALAHI-CIDSS municipalities – Balangiga in Eastern Samar, San Roque and Mondragon in Northern Samar.