A Different Approach: School-Led Total Sanitation - Part 1

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As of 2011, sanitation coverage worldwide was at 64%. With a worldwide population of just over seven billion this means that two and a half billion people still do not have access to improved sanitation facilities. Of these people, just over one billion still practice open defecation. Lack of proper sanitation and hygiene often leads to poor health and polluted water, which in turn leads to less production, less time in school, and many deaths worldwide.

One methodology that is being used to help communities realize their need for proper sanitation and hygiene is School Led Total Sanitation, or SLTS (closely linked to CLTS). The thought behind it is pretty brilliant. Have you ever had a child ask you for another piece of cake, or to stay out playing a little longer, or to come help them build a sand castle? They look up at your with their big eyes and innocent face and it's really hard to say no to them. It's almost as if they have some sort of super power that makes their appeals hard to turn down.

The requests thrown out above are trivial, but what if your child came home from school and told you that they wanted to start washing their hands before they ate.

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3 Answers

  2. i also do support the approach. the children serve as a reminder to their parents, their curiosity makes the implementation effective and encourages other house hold to participate. it is one of the easiest means to communicate your objectives as written in your write up that schools are looked at by the community as a place of education and good, which they can trust, they will often be more willing to listen to and participate in programs that are based at the school.

  3. @Brian, just like you rightly pointed out children are very effective change agents in the society at large not just in the field of WASH, they use their innocence to instill guilt in adults when they make their innocent observations about a situation. Just imagine a father who is a drunk, who comes home every night drunk. There is always this sense of guilt when a child opens up to tell his father the truth about his drinking habit. If this strength can be harnessed and used in programming, the results would be glaring. Children pay more detailed attention to issues than adults and in most cases they are in a better position to reveal issues adults would conceal, take for example pointing open defecation sites in a community. They would even serve you with certain classified information regarding whom in the community still practice open defecation and where they go. Therefore I totally support you in this respect and will urge WASH practitioners to explore this avenue for change especially regarding the WASH Sector.