(Community Led Total Sanitation)
Presentation by -
Shaikh A. Halim halim@verc.org

Organisational Profile
Name of organisation : Village Education Resource Center (VERC)
Year of Emergence : 1977
Vision : A self-reliant society based on justice equity and sustainability where every human being has equal opportunity to maximize their potentialities.
Mission : Establish and promote a dynamic and participatory sustainable process towards human development
Main interventions : WatSan & Technology, Education, Health,
Training & Communication, IBIG, Research,
Evaluation and Documentation

CLTS refers to Community Led Total Sanitation
• Enables the community analyzing its own sanitation profile
• Leads to collective action towards ODF status
The approach has proved to be a good practice that covers human rights considerations towards improved access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene.
The approach put people at the forefront, enables them by installing capacity in them so that they can feel that their views are important to initiate a process of desired change in the WatSan and hygiene scenario by raising the question how they look at it --

100% Sanitation as viewed by Community People
• 100% use of hygienic latrines i.e. no open defecation
• Good personal hygiene practices
• Safe water use for all domestic purposes
• Water points well managed

Key Principles
•Targeting total coverage for (100%) sanitation (inclusiveness)
• Social development not service delivery (affordability)
• Utilization of Social Capital (sustainability)
• Sanitation should not be a charity (Human Rights priority)
• Menu of Technology options based on affordability status of households
• Engagement of LGIs to steer the process for long term sustainability
• Recognition and promotion of indigenous knowledge, values and tradition
• Bottom-up process replaces the top down planning process
• Exploring local skills, technologies, norms/values and promote
( sustainability)

Pre-CLTS Scenario
• People not consulted in planning interventions for sanitation
• Total coverage was not the issue without which sanitation is meaningless
• Supply driven
• Service & Target oriented
• Prescribed limited technology options on practice
• Social accountability was not in place
• Poor, poorest vulnerable people were not in the focus of attention

Detail of Steps and Stages of the Process
Entry into a
Community
Mobilization of a
Community
Triggering or
Ignition
• Transect and Rapport building
• Identification of Key informants
• Date and time fixation for meeting in the community
• Social Mapping
• Seasonality trend analysis
• Well being ranking through FGD
• Vann diagram
•
Presentation and situation analysis
• Defecation site visit
• Calculation of feces
• Flow Diagram of feces
• Menu of hygienic latrine technology options
• Total coverage taken as priority
• Procession

Uniqueness of the Approach
• People’s participation in the entire PIME (Planning,
Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation) process to emphasize on motivational role
• Engagement of all segment of community people
• Looks at WatSan and Hygiene Education as a Human
Rights package issue
• Total coverage (household, public place and institution)
• A sense of ownership in community people supports sustainability

Challenges ahead
• Subsidy Vs. community empowerment
• Decline of water table in the northern region and arsenic contamination of ground water
• Support for software, hardware, research, studies, innovations
• Effective coverage in public place and institutions

Lessons learnt
• Shift from the old mind set
• Demand responsive other than extending absolute hardware
• Appropriate, low-cost and locally innovated technology
• Subsidy not needed on household sanitation coverage
• Local entrepreneurs in the appropriate role
• Women’s situation / privacy ensured
• Active involvement of Local Government

Community Mapping of WatSan situation
Self-managed public place sanitation block
Day observation on Poverty Reduction Effective hand washing session with girl students

Active involvement of students in hygiene promotion
Affordable technology support to people with disability
Adolescent group meeting on reproductive hygiene