CLTS
COMMUNITY LED TOTAL SANITATION
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
it is time to talk shit.
Why focus on sanitation?
Open defecation is a significant problem in the rural areas of Mozambique. Since very few households have latrines in their homes, and because the school has no sanitation facilities, open defecation is widespread. As you can imagine, this is a major health hazard and a very easy way for disease to spread including diarrheal diseases, worms and such. Providing clean water will do very little good if hygiene & sanitation is not equally addressed at the same time.
Dealing with this problem is an absolute necessity in the community — however it is neither financially practical nor effective to build latrines for everyone as an organization as it won't promote ownership and behavior change.
What is CLTS?
A new method has been continuously developed and improved over the last 15+ years called CLTS - Community-Led Total Sanitation. This program (developed by Indian specialist Kamal Kar in 2000) involves educating the entire community about the hazards of open defecation — and essentially shaming them about the practice.
This is meant to promote collective consciousness-raising of the severe impacts of open defecation and trigger shock and self-awareness when participants realize the implications of their actions.
The goal is to have an entirely 100% open-defecation-free community in 4 months.
The community participates in a very involved 'triggering & mapping process' where they map out the community in the dirt - including where the school is, water hole, market, church, and where everyone's home is.
Then, they take white baking flour and spread it around the areas where they defecate. This becomes a humorous exercise, as you can imagine, and we encourage light and playful attitude during this.
Then we ask the kids to be honest and show them where they go to the bathroom. In minutes, they see their entire community covered in white flour, which shows how 'dirty' their community is. This sparks an 'ah-ha' moment.
COLLECTIVE UNDERSTANDING
My Neighbors health is my health -
and visa versa.
The objective of the triggering exercise is that the shame and awareness compel each family to want to build their own latrine. We work alongside the Water Oversight Community and show the community how to make very cheap improved pit latrines mainly from local materials. We help identify which houses do not have latrines, and then the Committee members are assigned neighboring families and responsible for assisting all of those families build latrines over the course of the next 4 months.
2 Water Underground CLTS staff rotate living in each community for week-long periods at a time and go house by house supporting the initiative.
The Trigger
the
Tippy-Tap
Solutions to massive problems don't always require massive costs
Hand-washing statistically reduces all diarrheal diseases by 40%.
We show the connection necessary of hygiene and sanitation and offer a straightforward process called a 'tippy tap' that everyone can build in their home to wash hands. Tippy-Tap hand-wash stations are a great way to influence behavior change and ensure hand-wash facilities are placed in as many places as possible.
Tippy-taps are placed at the wells and outside of each classroom for kids to wash before entering. We incentivize families with a small yellow jerry can for their tippy tap if they complete building a latrine in their home. These yellow hand-wash stations have become a trademark of our CLTS program.
The Amazing Tippy-Tap
Tippy-taps are locally made, simple devices for washing hands with running water.
It works by using the foot to tap a lever to tip the water out from a container. This means hands can be washed without touching the stand –therefore stopping the spread of dirt and bacteria.
CLTS becomes a community movement fueled with pride
As the process takes root, families become overfilled with pride about how their household has shifted to become Open Defecation Free. Many innovations happen by each family using unique materials accessible to them.
This sense of pride and ownership is the key to successful CLTS.
BEING THE CHANGE
See how the President of the Water Oversight Committee is leading by example and allowing others to learn from the improvements in his own home.
the
Pride of Sanitation
Families that have built their latrines, hand wash stations, clean water storage and clean cooking areas show incredible amounts of renewed dignity and strength.
