The heavy rains, the poor economic situation in the country and the lack of health education and specific measures on behalf of the Ministry of the Health regarding the awareness and actions to prevent and combat the spread of parasites among animals and people lead to massive increase of the parasites, some of which extremely dangerous for the people. In 2004 on the territory of the Municipality of Bratsigovo have been registered 12 cases of people, suffered from acars, 4 of which with fatal end.
The insufficient awareness of the population regarding the danger from the fatal contamination from acaridae and lack of recognition of the seriousness of the problem led to a great number of people suffering from parasites bites and serious infections within the villages of the municipality. On the other hand not only the owners of the domestic animals have been registered as medical cases, but also other citizens. The house-yards, the streets, the grass areas are zones with high presence of acaridae and parasites. The coordination in the process of combating the parasites has been inefficient.
The start of the project has been marked with a 5-months long information and awareness raising campaign among the population. A part of this campaign has been a survey among the people to identify their level of awareness on the problem and find out their attitude towards the issue. The young people from the community were motivated to participate in a contest, which aimed to collect the most interesting, provoking and educational material on the topic. 67 materials were submitted by the students and a student jury nominated 7 out of these 67 to be awarded. A public discussion has been organised on the problems related to the negative impact of the parasites on the domestic animals in the municipality. At the end of the public discussion the nominated 7 essays were publicly awarded.
12 radio broadcasts at the local level were organised in January 2006. These radio programmes have been prepared from the students, using the educational materials submitted during the contest on combating the parasites. The young people prepared and disseminated more than 800 brochures among the local population, animal owners, farmers, students.
In the process of collecting, dissemination and awareness rising were involved a wide number of people students, elderly, municipal experts, representatives from the Social Care Directorate, teachers, journalists, citizens. This contributed to the formation of an overall positive attitude among the population and encouraged its active involvement in the construction of a special bath-treatment medical site for the animals and the further anti-parasites medical bathing of more than 4000 sheep and goats.
More than 195 decares of grass areas within the municipality were mowed; 10 homeless animals were captured. The mowing and the disinfection of the grass areas in the villages led to a high decrease of the registered cases of people infected or suffering from parasites.
On the territory of the municipalities there were 2 bath-treatment medical sites for animals, but they were almost destructed and out of use. These were reconstructed and brought back to active usage from the animal owners. The reconstruction of the bath-treatment sites fro the animals has been a reasonable investment, which increased with merely 40% the effectiveness of the efforts to combat and control the parasites among the domestic animals in the municipality. These reconstructed bath-treatment site will be further maintained from the Municipality of Bratsigovo, in order to ensure the future usage of the sites from the population and the animal owners in a more efficient and organised manner.
The domestic animals (sheep and goats) of all animal owners within the 5 villages on the territory of the municipality have been disinfected through medical bath-treatment, so as a result of the simultaneous disinfection bathing more than 3200 animals undertake the treatment). In parallel to that, more than 943 private animal-sheds were disinfected.
98 unemployed people were involved in the implementation of the project activities, who took part in the mowing and cleaning of the grass areas, as well as in the bathing of all the domestic animals.
A positive practice with long-term impact in the field of combating parasites among people and domestic animals has been experienced through the realisation of the project activities. Among the main results from the survey among the population of the municipality, 92% of the people (animal-owners) would like to ensure 2 medical bath treatments annually for the sheep and goats they have. The project results became a working practice, which proved efficient and useful both for the population and the domestic animals within the municipality. The project has a great importance for all citizens of the villages and had the overall approval and support on behalf of the population and resulted in high involvement and citizen participation. The efforts to increase the healthcare culture and create effective and organised mechanisms to combat the harmful effect of the parasites on people and domestic animals were strongly supported by local institutions, organisations and people at different age. The population has been provoked to work together in order to overcome an existing problem.
A significant role for the success of the project has played the teamwork and the effective coordination among the project partners young people, the youth centre, school managements, the Municipality of Bratsigovo, Labour Bureau, business and media representatives.
The efforts and activities of all interested parties in a long-term information campaign were united and the level of awareness and knowledge of the population on the problems caused by parasites has been increased. The domestic animal owners had the opportunity to effectively work against the massive spread of parasites on the goats and sheep on the territory of the municipality, not just partially in one village.
The coordination among all stakeholders has been improved. More experience has been accumulated, which can be successfully applied in the future.
The capacity of the Centre for Sustainable Development of Municipality of Bratsigovo has been increased, especially in the field of project implementation, awareness raising and community mobilisation to solve common problems.
Contacts:
Petya Georgieva
Centre for Sustainable Development of the Municipality of Bratsigovo
Eurointegration Chief Expert
Municipality of Bratsigovo
Tel.: (03552) 2065
Fax: (03552) 2101
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