Community Let Sanitation

Programme (CLTS)
 What is CLTS?
Process to inspire and empower rural
communities to stop open defecation
Build and use latrine
No subsidy to purchase hardware
Ignite a collective sense of disgust and shame
among the community
Make community collectively realise the
terrible impact of open defecation
 The sequence of steps
Pre-triggering
Selecting a community
Introduction and building rapport
Half a day to one week
Triggering
Participatory sanitation profile analysis
Ignition movement
Within a day
Post-triggering
Action planning by community
Follow up
3 weeks to three months
Scaling up and going beyond
 Pre-triggering
Selection of village
Small settlement better
Socially and culturally homogeneous
Visibly filthy condition; high incidence of disease
No overlapping programme (especially subsidy driven)
Meet local leaders, village chiefs etc.
Introduction and rapport building
Transect walk
Which families use which areas, where women go, where to
go at night
 Triggering
Trigger self-realisation among community members that
they need to change their own behaviour
Draw attention to the flies on the shit
Chicken pecking and eating shit
Mapping of defecation areas through PRA
Map of community to locate households, resources and
problems and stimulate discussion
Tool for getting all community members involved in practical
and visual analysis of community sanitation situation
Community labelling of dirtiest neighbourhood
Display the map in community building or common place
Remainder to take action
Monitoring tool
 Triggering
Calculation of quantity of shit produces
Where does all shit go?
What are the possible effects of having so much shit on ground
DO NOT
Try to convince community to stop open defecation and start
construction of toilets
Your job is to facilitate good analysis that ignites sense of disgust and
shame
Lecture or try to educate community about the disease caused
Talk about subsidy
Prescribe model latrines
May talk about pit toilet if community cannot afford cost
 Triggering
Desired outcome
Collective realisation that due to open defecation
everyone is ingesting each others faeces and will
continue unless open defecation is stopped
TOTALLY
 Post-triggering
Action planning
Form sanitation action group from representative
from all the neighbours of village
Make list of household, present sanitation status,
develop individual family plans
Digging pits for makeshift arrangement
Getting commitments from better-off families
Looking for suppliers of latrine construction
material
 Post-triggering

Community action and follow up

Identify natural leaders emerging from PRA
Encourage natural leaders to lead and share ideas
Encourage natural leaders to take charge of
ensuring action plan
Punishment
Community might decide on penalty
 Scaling up
Develop Community Facilitator
Short training
Reasonable fee for work
Facilitator must AVOID educating or advising
Government or donor agencies or international
NGOs may intervene
Must recognise to role of community facilitator