UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA – UNICEF SOCIAL NORMS COURSE
Women’s Participation in Total Sanitation
Campaign:
The Orissa Experience
Olushola Ismail
7/19/2010
Executive Summary
This case study attempts to illustrate the experience of UNICEF in Orissa State (India) on
involvement of women Self Help Groups in accelerating the Total Sanitation Campaigns
towards creating demand for and supply of individual toilets among the rural communities.
Where the years of top down approach did not yield the desired result, these women have
demonstrated that given necessary skills, guidance and encouragement, they can change the
attitude of the rural communities, adopting cost effective household toilets and improved
hygiene practices at the household, community and institutional level. The focus of this
experiment was to promote a number of rural sanitation production centers managed by
women, which could double as social mobilization dissemination points. While supporting a
national Programme towards improving the quality of life, these women have created an
opportunity for their own income generation activities. Thus, the sustainability of the
Programme has been ensured with the Government acknowledging the strategy as a truly
replicable one. Christina Bicchieri (2006) has argued that social norms are clusters of
expected behavior that bind people together culturally. They are systemic perpetuated by
multiple and acted out without critical as to their origin or function. Considering the above
therefore one is left to argue that open defecation cannot be considered as social norms as
there are no empirical nor normative expectation (Christine Bicchieri, 2006) associated with
the behavior. David Lewis (1975) proffered that explanation in terms of norms does not
compete with one that refers to expectations and preferences, since norms persist precisely
because of certain expectations and preferences. In other words, open defecation is more of
behavioral issue that bothers on ignorance or habit that has health as underpinning but the
fact remains everyone does open defecation and additional investments on the part of
individual or community will add no values hence no social norms are established.. There is
no sanction accompanying this behavior which could act as deterrence or discouragement of
the habit cultivated over time. As David Lewis himself pointed out in his analysis of habits,
habit may be under an agent’s rational control in the sense that should habit ever cease to
serve the agent’s desires according to his beliefs, it would at once be overridden and
abandoned (Lewis, 1975). However, Ryan Muldoon social network analysis, 2010 pointed
out that social norms are element of welfare, in that wise, a positive behavior can be
provoked by creating a social change by creating a collective knowledge around an issue as
importance as open defecation. Social mobilization or aware creation becomes one of the
major activities that the community can embarked upon to bring about the expected result.
According to Ryan, 2010 Social Network analysis becomes a powerful tool understand how
change can occur based on the trust and leadership of individual or collective efforts that can
be put into use for information dissemination.
This case study attempted such level of analysis and focused on working with Self Help
Women group to build a social norm around open defecation in Orissa State that could carry
with it the empirical and normative expectation while providing economic incentive for the
women group on a long run.
Background
Consumption of safe drinking water, proper sanitation and adoption of correct hygiene
practices has a significant impact on the health of people. As per the Lancet Papers on Child
Survival, diarrheal diseases are amongst the top three global killers of children in the world
today. Since diarrheal diseases are of fecal origin all precautions should be taken to prevent
fecal matter from entering the domestic premises. Improper disposal of human excreta,
improper environmental sanitation and lack of personal and food hygiene are major
contributions to diseases in developing countries. The prevailing high Infant Mortality Rate
of 87/1000 for Orissa can also be attributed to poor sanitation.
It was in this context that the Government of India launched the Centrally Sponsored Rural
Sanitation Programme (CRSP) in 1986 primarily with an objective of improving the quality
of life of the rural people. However, the CRSP programme had its own snags. The
interventions were primarily supply driven and the latrines were provided to rural
beneficiaries at high rates of subsidy. The lack of a proper fund channelization system and a
standard implementation strategy led to unprecedented delays in fund utilization and ad hoc
interventions which failed to achieve the primary objective of the programme. Furthermore,
the Zillah Parshad (community) _ which was supposed to implement the programme was
neither formally prepared nor did it have the infrastructure to conduct the programme.
With an intention to both reverse and strengthen the shortcomings of the CRSP programme,
the Government of India launched the TSC programme in 1999. The TSC marked a
paradigm shift in the way in which government programmes were designed and
implemented. It aimed to bring about qualitative change in the lives of people through;

A demand driven participatory approach wherein the community would be involved
in the process of planning, implementing, operating and maintaining its own system.

It would therefore be a community-led, people-centered approach as opposed to a
government led and supply driven initiative

The TSC also has a strong IEC, Human Resource and Capacity development
activities to increase the awareness of people on sanitation and generate a demand for
facilities.

A range of toilet design and cost options are being promoted to cater to the needs and
demands of different category of people
The objectives of the TSC are as follows:

Total eradication of open defecation in both rural and urban community of India
which will accelerate sanitation coverage particularly in the rural communities.

Bring about an improvement in the general quality of life of people in the rural areas

Generate a felt and informed demand for sanitation facilities through awareness
creation and health education

Cover school in the rural areas with sanitation facilities and promote sanitary habits
among students

Encourage cost effective and appropriate technologies in sanitation

Bring about a reduction in the water and sanitation related diseases.
2. Situation Analysis – Sanitation Scenario in Orissa
India has the second largest population in the world. More than 70% of India’s population
lives in the rural areas with approximately 22% of them having access to sanitation facilities.
There is however intense disparity between the States with regard to access and use of
sanitation facilities. Only 6% of the rural households in Madhya Pradesh use toilets as
compared to over 80% of rural populace in Kerala and Manipur using toilet facilities. It has
also been seen that using a toilet has less to do with affordability and more to do with the
attitude. 8% of the rural population in Haryana uses a toilet but 40% of the households have a
TV at home. 63% of the rural populace in Kerala has access to toilets but only 18% have a
TV and in West Bengal 22% of the rural people use a toilet but 8% have TV. This clearly
states that having and using a toilet depends upon the mentality of the community and the
priority given to allocating household expenditure. The aforesaid demographical figures
further confirmed the less importance individual pays to open defecation carry no sanction
nor seen as social norms
The current case study however focused on Orissa State which is one of the eastern States of
India with a population of 37 million people, 85% of which live in rural areas. Orissa is
among the poorest states in India, with the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality as
well as the lowest rate of sanitation in the country. A few years back, less than 5% of the
State’s population had access to adequate sanitation. Toward improving the situation, the
Government of Orissa joined the rest of the States of India to embrace the Total Sanitation
Campaign (TSC) with all its 30 districts. The objective of TSC is to create a state-wide
awareness for sanitation, which along with water has received little attention over the years.
The critical component of the TSC is that the beneficiaries are equal partners with equal
stake in the implementation of both the hard and software of the Programme. The activities
carried out so far have focused on women as mere receivers rather than as significant social
network partners that have a vital role to play towards the successful implementation of TSC.
In Orissa State, each of the 30 districts has over 5,000 Self Help Group members who are
strongly linked and responsible in many of the social activities around domestic issues and
general well being of their family. . These groups of women over the years have been
engaged in various development activities linked to their social economic well being.
Encouragingly, many of the district administrations that have strong centrality leadership role
have expressed interest to involve these groups with inclusion of sanitation as part of their
development Programme.
The Issue - Women’s Participation
The social convention theory also describes the social dynamics of the organization of
the abandonment of open defecation. The smaller core group of first movers, called the
critical mass can conditionally resolve to abandon the old way of open defecation and
then has an incentive to recruit remaining members of the community to conditionally
join the effort , until large a large enough portion, called the tipping point, is willing to
coordinate on total acceptance of open defecation. The process of persuasion and
attitude change about the health implication, the advantages and disadvantages of
abandonment of open defecation ids an organized diffusion from the core groups
through existing and created of social network with the selected communities (Gerry
Mackie, 2009). The selection of the women self help group therefore stemmed from
various studies of water and sanitation all over the world and based on experience that
have shown that women play a significant role in influencing the family’s sanitary
habits, particularly as it affects girl-children and infants. It is assumed that a woman’s
perspective can contribute a great deal to improve planning, functioning and utilization
of the sanitary facilities, especially when they are made aware of the linkage that exists
between safe sanitation and health, and are simultaneously provided with appropriate
training and support. Generally, among the scheduled tribal group of India, they did not
see the linkage between sanitation and health. The belief is that the heat from toilets is
responsible for early miscarriages or abortion among the women and this belief among
other health risky practices promote open defecations. Also, the pungent smell
associated with toilets resulted in outright abandonment of latrines. Under TSC, the
script (Christina, 2006) has been established where by the involvement of women has
been seen as only target groups but however according to (Ryan 2010) on the centrality
of leadership in the social net work analysis, women will be considered as informed
consumers, clients, a strong social network and managers who are capable of making
informed choices as well as being part of the radical change that is expected. They will
be involved as active agents who can contribute to decision making, generation of ideas,
mobilization of labor, providing resources and disseminating health related messages as
well as act as partners in implementing new innovations. The will be seen as social
network that can influence positive change which will provoke social norms around
open defecation with all the associated empirical and normative expectation within
individual household and community in general. The involvement will focus on social
mobilization and advocacy that will help to spur interest and participation as major
strategic elements reinforcing messages that will breakdown the old traditional and
cultural barriers around toilets usage. Their efforts will be strengthen through ensuring
proper linkages established and reinforced through linkages with other existing
community social networking which include decision makers at all level, opinion
leaders, officials, service delivery staff, media, NGOs, women groups, school teachers,
students/pupils, caregivers, districts, camps and community/villages. Basic information
and social consensus building will be part of the overall goal.
Programme Strategy and Activities
In identifying social networks in the rural communities as source of transformation that
will focus on the behavior of the individual households, the TSC provides example how
women groups can be motivated through participatory approach to bring about changes
that will affect their health in general. This is further confirmed from the non-formal
education programme work of TOSTAN in Senegal that women empowerment plays
significant role in the transformation of their communities (Tostan 2009 report). This
recognition underpinned the basis that UNICEF has initiated a strategy towards working
jointly with the Government on a pilot basis through promotion of social network of
Women Self Help Groups (SHG) in order to improve the participation of women in the
current drive for sanitation. This approach is designed with economic incentives for
training Self Help Groups to manage Rural Sanitary Production Centers where most of
the sanitary ware is produced. These women are supported with various women-friendly
tools and technical assistance to be able to perform their function in mobilizing the
community towards adapting better hygiene practices, creation of demand for
household toilets and meeting the demand by constructing affordable toilets.
The current strategy is aimed at establishing/expansion/up gradation of all-women
Production Centers in each of the UNICEF assisted district. Each Production Centre has
a minimum of 25 women member from the local SHG. The women have been trained
on various related subjects varying from community mobilization focusing on the
community beliefs and taboos, production of sanitary ware, hygiene promotion and
basic accounting/book keeping. These Production Centers double up as training centers
for training of women village based workers as well as masons who are encouraged to
procure hardware materials from the production centers for the construction of
individual, community, school and anganwadi (pre-school) toilets. To help to strengthen
the social network towards being about collection action around the noted social norms
in the community, the selection of the village motivators is jointly carried out with the
full involvement of the women Production
Functionaries, Masons and the Community
leaders to maintain certain level of linkages
and trust. Each production center is given a
number for easy identification and each
trained mason is given an identification card
and linked with the Production Center.
Processes are on for officially registering
these Centres with the District Water and Sanitation Missions as authorized producers
and builders of toilets under the TSC.
The block level Child Development Project Officer (CDPO) under the Women and
Child Development Department is the nodal person who will identify, select, train and
deploy the SHG members, monitor their progress and ensure continuous support and
patronage by all concerned stakeholders. The technical assistance is garnered from the
Junior Engineer of the District Mission. Participatory methods are applied in all stages
of consultations, discussions and selection processes. The old script that women could
not be engaged in technical issues was demystified by ensuring that capacity
development, empowerment of women and participation in choices that will affect their
life was given attention the course of the project. Thus, the resulting network has a three
pronged strategy, as follows:

The Motivators facilitate the creation of demand and work towards bringing
about the desired behavioral changes at the household level that includes use of
toilets and adopting correct hygiene practices such as water handling and hand
washing at critical time. The motivators earn Rs 50.00 (a little over $ 1 from the
Government for sensitizing and creation of demand for one household toilet.

The Production Centers produce sanitary hardware and meet the demand
created by the motivators as well as serve as the centers for the subsequent
training of local masons. A typical Production Centre earns Rs 100 ($2) per each
household toilet.

Trained Masons construct the individual, community, school and anganwadi
toilets depending on the chosen option. One mason can earn a minimum of to Rs
100 ($ 2) per day.
Participatory methods are applied in identifying and selecting the SHG members and the
Production Centres. These are:

Female members of an approved Self Help Group, above 18 years of age.

Living below poverty line

From the same block

Willingness to participate and to be trained.

Support from husband (if married) or family member.
Different stakeholders have different roles to play in establishing this network of SHG-led
Production Centres. Some of them are as under:
Child Development Project Officers (Women and Child Development Department)

Nodal persons for the community network

Identify and select active Self Help Groups as Production Centre holders

Identify individual members as Village Motivators, Production Centre Functionaries
and Masons

Hold monthly meetings to review progress of work

Co-signatory to the SHG Bank account

Provide over sight, supervise and facilitate the smooth running of the production
centers.
Block level Engineer

Provide technical supervision for the production of sanitary hardware

Support the technical training for the women masons

Jointly with the nodal officers hold monthly meeting with the SHG members to
review progress of work

Register the SHG members with the District Mission and ensure patronage

Monitor and provide technical input for the construction of the individual household
toilets
UNICEF

Training for the Village Motivators on behavioral change communication

Training of Production Centre Functionaries

Provision of women-friendly tools and equipment

Provision of moulds and shutters

Provision of start-off construction materials

Provision of lady bicycles to facilitate mobility

Support in demand creation strategies and activities
It is on this basis that UNICEF is exploring feasibilities of working jointly with few
District Administrations on a pilot basis through its network of Women Self Help group
(Social Welfare Section) and State Water and Sanitation Mission to improve the
participation of women in the current drive for sanitation. This approach will aim at
training women members of Self Help Group (SHG) to manage Production Centers
where most of the sanitary ware will be produced. These selected women will be
supported with various women-friendly tools and technical assistance to be able to
perform their function in mobilizing the community towards accepting and constructing
affordable toilets. The Production Centers which will be strategically located in each
block of the district and will become centers for training women masons and the village
motivators.
The ANJUMAN Network
TOOLS
1. 2-3 day Training
Social mobilization
hygiene promotion.
2. Basic Tools
IEC materials
Flip books
Hand bills etc
3. Bicycles to be
able to cover at
least 5 villages.
STAGE ONE
Village Motivators
TOOLS
1. Training on
construction for 5
days.
2. Basic tools to be
provided;
i. Shovel
Ii. Trowels
iii. Pick Axe,
iv. Smoother
v. MeasureTape,
vi. Spirit leveling
Composition
1. Mixture of Men and Women from SHG,
Community, NGOs, Angawadis,
teachers, TBA, VEC, VWSC etc...
2. Location: Block level
3. Supervisors: Block Ankur group)
4. Task:

All hygiene promotion activities.

Social mobilization ( as movers at
household level)

Monthly meeting with different groups

Monitoring of community based
indicators

Better group for convergence
(Communication/CDN/Health/Education)
Time: Flexible and convenient as arranged
Stage Three with the target groups
Masons
(Minimum of 250)
Composition
1. Masons (60% women selected from SHG,
NGO, and community members)
2. Location: Construction site
3. Supervisor: Child Development Officer with technical support from DWSM
Engineers
4. Tasks

Erecting school toilets

Community toilets

Individual toilets

Rehabilitation/OM of existing toilets

Erecting Angawadis toilets

Other Sanitation related construction
Stage Two
Production Center Functionaries
(Minimum 250)
1. Composition
(100% women) selected from SHG, NGOs, and
VWSC and community members
2. Location: Production center
3. Supervisor: Team leader at the production
Center under the supervision of CDPO
4. Tasks

Concentrate on construction of Blocks,

Rings of different dimension

Slabs of different dimension

other sanitary wares

Support production of soap

Create demand for toilets

Linkage between Production center and
individual seeking to construct toilets

Procurement of facilities for materials for
production
Time required per day (09.00- 17.00)


Time required: 09.00 – 17.00
Other activities at the production center
Time: 09.00 am – 17.00 pm
TOOLS
1. Three day
training on
different
sanitary wares.
2. Basic tools
i. Molds of
different type
ii. Shovels
iii. Trowels
iv. Head pan
v. Water Hose
UNICEF

Training for the Village Motivators on behavioral change communication

Training of Production Centre Functionaries

Provision of women-friendly tools and equipment

Provision of moulds and shutters

Provision of start-off construction materials

Provision of lady bicycles to facilitate mobility

Support in demand creation strategies and activities
The Achievements
UNICEF and the state Government started this process in mid 2005 in one of the tribal
districts of Orissa. Today, the process has spread to 8 districts and has established 105
production centres with over 5000 village level motivators and 2500 women
functionaries who are actively supporting the Total Sanitation Campaign.
Key Lessons

The capacity of the local women to facilitate community processes should not be
underestimated. However, they need constant hand holding and support, especially
from the Government.

Community management only becomes a reality if decision making, including
financial control is devolved to the women

Decision making implies that communities have choices to make throughout the
project process. Systems are therefore needed to provide people with an informed
choice of options.

For the women to become active development, it requires quality facilitation. Once
developed, a successful demand driven approach can achieve more in a year than a
decade of top-down service provision.

Demand and supply must go hand in hand with easy access provided to women to
available resources.

Once convince about the benefit of the project particularly to their health, women are
very commitment to bring about change and with great deal of expectation.
References
Annual Report of government of India Centrally Sponsored Water and Sanitation
Programme, 1986
Lewis D. (1975 Languages and Language. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science,
K. Gunderson, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press
The transformative power of democracy and human rights in Non-formal Education: The
case of Tostan by Diane Gillespie and Molly Melching, March, 2010
The lesson learned from comparison of FGM/C abandonment programme in five countries
for Innocenti research centre, UNICEF by Gerry Mackie, 2009
Social Norms by Christina Bicchieri and Ryan Muldoon, Sanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy), 2006
The Challenge, the monthly Orissa State Water and Sanitation published magazine, October
2006 edition
Zimbabwe water and sanitation sector HIV/AIDS Response plan, programme, strategies and
guideline, first edition, June 2003