Shit!

Another work break through... Some of you may remember my excitement last year while researching a paper on "shit." Yes, that's right I got to write "shit" in an academic paper. More than once. I was easily taken in to methodology of Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). The famous participatory guru, Robert Chambers, is a co-founder of CLTS (his present baby) and made sure to plant the seeds in all IDS students' heads... I took the bait and wrote a nice term paper on it.

Now that i am the token WASH person for CRS/Nigeria (meaning: I'm the only one left who doesn't have a million and one things assigned to them), I had arranged for meetings to learn and potentially collaborate with organizations implementing WASH in Nigeria. ...CLTS kept coming up...This is the primary community mobilization method used in Nigeria!

Below is an excerpt from a paper of mine. Please note that an explicit method of CLTS includes the use of the crude, local equivalent word for 'shit':

The basic principle of CLTS is the empowerment of local communities to do their own appraisal and analysis, come to their own conclusions and take their own action to become open defecation free (ODF) (Chambers 2009: 11). Small teams of facilitators enter communities and lead a triggering process over the period of five days by utilizing participatory approaches of mapping, transect walks to areas of open defecation, calculations of shit produced, and identifying pathways to the mouth (Chambers 2009: 11). The climax of the process usually occurs in the shocking recognition that we are eating one anothers shit (Chambers 2009: 11). In order to galvanize immediate behavior change, the triggering process is explicitly conducted for the whole of the community in a manner inducing shock, shame, and disgust, tempered with humor (Deak 2008: 11). Natural leaders from within the communities are identified to monitor the construction of basic latrines with local materials and by becoming liaisons with the outside facilitators and other local authoritative figures for follow up and showcasing. Many communities become ODF within two months of the triggering process (Kar with Chambers 2008: 9).

Rather than focusing on the number of latrines built, a common measurement of the hardware subsidy programs, CLTS is focused primarily on the ODF status of communities and the change in sanitation behavior versus the number of toilets (Deak 2008: 10). In addition to the immediate health benefits of ODF status, the founders have emphasized impacts of this newly activated citizen voice on a broader scale regarding the enormous potential for reducing poverty, enhancing human well-being, contributing to the MDGs, and leading to other collective actions (Kar and Chambers letter 2008).

Presently, myself and my supervisor are very enthusiastic about CLTS and were excited to find out one of partners has working knowledge on this... it will be a new component in our "Water for Peace" project!  Anyway, i tend to get a bit excited about new ideas and participatory methods, but of course even CLTS is not perfect and has great challenges. First, the shocking and shaming approach doesn't always sit well with a Westernized perspective on community mobilization. Additionally, presenting human excreta as 'disgusting' may present obstacles for other ecological sanitation projects in which human excreta can actually be utilized as as farming resource. You can decide for yourself by watching this short little video (toward bottom of page) http://www.wateraid.org/uk/about_us/newsroom/6613.asp#  

By the way, I am fully aware that I have neglected to write about my lovely week in Accra, Ghana and other personal anecdotes. Once I get the chance to upload some pictures I will write more! ....bear with me! 

Chambers, Robert (2009). Going to Scale with Community-Led Total Sanitation: Reflections on Experience, Issues and Ways Forward. Institute of Development Studies Practice Paper, Vol. 2009: 1.

Deak, Andrew (2008). Taking Community-Led Total Sanitation to Scale: Movement, Spread and Adaptation. Institute of Development Working Paper 298.

 Kar, Kamal with Chambers, Robert (2008). Handbook on Community-Led Total Sanitation. London: Plan International (UK) and Institute of Development Studies.