Dr Kamal Kar is a renown specialist in social and participatory education. In 1999 he was invited to Bangladesh to observe why locals in rural communities were not using the latrines that had been built for them by certain organisations.
Dr Kar immersed himself in the culture and decided to become a learner instead of a teacher and actually listened to what the locals thought of their subsidised toilets.
Through critical scrutiny, Dr Kar created CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation). The program focused on the whole community rather than the individual behaviours and sought to ignite a change in sanitation conduct rather than constructing toilets.
Bangladesh had the first ODF (Open Defecation Free) town in the world, and just a year later five hundred (500) other communities had followed suit. The CLTS has now been adopted across numerous nations including many in Africa, Asia & South America.
Through shock education Dr Kar made the act of Open Defecation shameful, disgusting and unhygienic and made it clear to communities that if they stopped this activity they would dramatically decrease many bacterial diseases like Typhoid, Cholera and Diarrhoea.
Dr Kar prides the success of the program because he stopped telling local about subsidy programs and listened instead. This simple act in turn created ‘natural leaders’ who took responsibility for the whole community and educated groups to confront their unpalatable realities.
Dr Kar was involved with introducing the program to the Cape Coast region area of Ghana, and after just one week saw significant results in particular communities. Eventually these successful communities will educate other rural areas until ideally whole regions can claim to be Open Defecation Free.
-Olivia Berry (Projects Abroad)
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