July 02, 2007	Monday	Jamadi-us-Sani 16, 1428

ISLAMABAD, July 1: A community-led sanitation training workshop ended in Rawalpindi on Saturday with growing realisation among the participants that open defecation was the primary cause of many health disorders which were highly prevalent in neighbourhoods inhabited by lower and middle classes.

More than 55 community activists, both men and women, working with Rural Support Programme (RSP) networks all over the country took part in the four-day training on social mobilisation techniques for Community-led total Sanitation (CLTS) approach in a tented village near Islamabad. Rural Support Programme Network Chairperson Shoaib Sultan was the chief guest at the closing ceremony.

Sharing her experiences, Pathani Begum from Dhoke Chaudrian said women and children were the worst sufferers of open defecation, adding that “as a community elder I understand their suffering and pain and they listen to me.” Pathani Begum, who had come with her grandson, explained how she was able to convince women of all the 25 houses in her village to stop defecating in the open within 20 days and build toilets. She invited the participants to her village and see for themselves.

“I went house to house and convinced the women what good it will do to them. There was no concession given,” she added. Safooran, a young 17-year-old woman from a village in Umer Kot, Sindh said it took her one-and-a-half hours to build a toilet in her house.

“If we want to change, we will have to do something ourselves. We are illiterate but this is something very simple to understand. We have to take charge of our lives. It is about our children’s well being,” she said.

The new sanitation programme is based on igniting a collective sense of disgust and shame among community members as they realise the terrible impact of open defecation and its negative impacts on the entire community.

The basic assumption is that no human being can stay unmoved once they have learned that they are ingesting other people’s feaces. Generally communities react strongly and immediately try to find ways to change this through their own effort.

“You are lighting a match at a gas station, igniting people to change,” said Kamal Khar, a CLTS trainer. “The aim is to help the community members realise for themselves how sanitary or unsanitary their behaviour is and decide whether they need to change.”

Activists are the matches that will light up this fire. The future of sanitation in Pakistan is a people’s movement. Ultimately everyone will do what you are doing, Farhan Sami, Chief of Water and Sanitation Programme, South Asia, ensured the participants.

“The translation of this national sanitation policy into action poses a significant challenge for the Ministry of Environment. One of the salient features of the National Sanitation Policy approved last year was the goal of creating an ‘open defecation free (OFD)’ environment,” Ministry of Environment’s Director (Environment) Javed Ali Khan said.

Explaining the government’s initiative, he said the ministry was developing a performance-based award for districts who declare themselves ODF.

The National Sanitation Policy has emerged and provided clear- cut guidelines about social and behavioural change, RSP Network Social Sector Specialist Tanya Khan said. “Capacity of these organisations needs to be built to make them effective, which is a proven tool of poverty alleviation,” Ms Khan noted.

These community-led, demand driven and outcome-oriented approaches have not only successfully overcome the problem of low demand for sanitation, but they have also delivered significant changes in collective behaviour, resulting in improved health outcomes for all.