COMMINUTY-LED SANITATION PROJECT OPERATIONAL

By: Frances Black (Projects Abroad)
Photography by Olivia Berry

Wednesday 11^th March signalled the last day of a five day workshop about Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), held at the Coconut Grove resort in Elmina. The organisation, founded by Dr Kamal Kar, works with small villages and communities who still practise Open Defecation (OD), which indirectly results in a number of fatal diseases, to abandon this habit in favour of using latrines and a higher standard of hygiene and sanitation.

           

The day began with a short speech from Kar detailing the objectives and the achievements of the organisation, and the methods used to achieve a village’s open defecation free (ODF) status. The main focus of the day, however, were the numerous presentations by people from each village or community, ‘natural leaders’, who gave short talks on the problems that their communities faced before, and how they had collectively decided to turn their backs on open defecation in order to follow a more hygienic way of life.

           

The villages, which included Eduegyie, Nyamebeyere, Brenyi Village, MPeasem and Kanasi, all had similar stories, highlighting the widespread occurrence of this problem. Most villages had been practising open defecation for as long as they could remember, and most were not aware of its unhygienic nature or relation to many potentially fatal diseases such as diarrhoea and cholera. Those giving the presentations explained how those working for CLTS did not order or force them to stop OD, but in fact gave the villagers the tools to understand for themselves how it was unclean and unsafe.

This approach of putting the power in the communities’ hands seems to have been a significant success, as it shows respect for the villagers and does not patronise or belittle them.  Rather than lecture, Kar explained that the role of those helping the villages was to try to learn from the villagers rather than teach. The primary breakthrough for most of the communities was the realisation that they were indirectly eating each others’ faeces, as flies would land on them, and then subsequently land on the villagers’ food, which they would then eat. Such a realisation filled many with feelings of shame and repulsion, and it is from this point onwards that the community can begin to take action on the back of their own motivation, rather than some else’s.

The principal solution is the building of latrines in the community, which provide villagers with a safe and hygienic way to relieve themselves. The use of local materials such as bamboo, old roofing sheets, palm fronds and wooden boards are encouraged, so that minimal expenditure is required, and to show that communities can accomplish this on their own, without the help and aid of others, which also gives those concerned a strong sense of achievement and pride.

In addition to the latrines, communities are encouraged to completely refresh their approach to hygiene by cleaning their surroundings and their latrines regularly, and washing their hands with soap or ash after using the latrines. Other small but important changes include covering their food so that flies can not land on it and keeping control of weedy areas.

Kar explained that children are invaluable in the transition process, as they help to act as a pressure group to encourage the adults to change their way of living. The children sing songs against open defecation and are instrumental in designing the latrines, as it is incredibly important that the children feel comfortable using them, as they will be growing up with them.

Approximately one person dies every fifteen seconds from diarrhoea, however after the implementation of the CLTS project in communities all over the world, diarrhoea rates dropped dramatically, along with infant mortality rates. Medical expenditure also decreased substantially, as in some villages households were spending on average 20 GHS per month on medicine related to illnesses caused by open defecation.

Nevertheless, despite the obvious advantages and benefits of adopting an open defecation free status, a small number of communities do show reluctance to change. Urban villages, for example, are generally larger, and therefore it is harder to change the opinion of all the residents, and much harder for those in the community to make sure that nobody is openly defecating.

Othniel Habila, the Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene at Unicef, who are a sponsors of CLTS, along with Wateraid and Plan, was present at the workshop. He heralded the CLTS’ successful involvement and work in Ghana as ‘the beginnings of a major movement in Ghana’, and that it could ‘lead the way for a number of countries in Africa’, showing the enthusiasm and support that this project has.

Many villages will soon be celebrating their official open defecation free (ODF) day, marking the date at which open defecation will have officially stopped in their town. The fact that such occasions exist shows how much CLTS have succeeded in changing the attitudes and behaviours of villages and communities. In a world where currently 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic toilets, the Community-Led Total Sanitation project is bravely, respectfully and selflessly working to resolve a highly sensitive, yet crucial problem, one village at a time.