Influential Yaa leaders from the Gabra ethnic group attend a hygiene promotion session in Marsabit. Among the challenges Concern has overcome was resistance on the part of some nomadic communities to building latrines.
English
A community in Marsabit discusses hygiene and sanitation on World Toilet Day 2015. Early adopters of latrines have been encouraged to act as ‘change agents’, influencing their friends, families and others to follow suit.
A latrine built through the Community-Led Total Sanitation approach with the support of Concern Worldwide. Conversations with communities have focused on the fact that women, children and the elderly remain in permanent settlements, and need latrines to support their health and dignity.
Concern Worldwide has overcome a number of challenges to exceed its targets on providing access to water and sanitation in Marsabit County, in the northern Arid and Semi-Arid Lands region of Kenya.
Through Concern’s development of the water infrastructure and implementation of the Community-Led Total Sanitation approach, 10,171 people are now accessing over 15 litres of clean, safe water per person, per day (compared with a target of 9,800 people), and 3,000 people have access to improved sanitation facilities – more than three times the target of 900.
The focus for Concern in the last few months of the output phase of the SWIFT programme is on hygiene-promotion activities. By the beginning of January 2016 it had reached 18,000 people with messaging; it aims to reach a total of 30,000 people by the end of March.
Resistance to change
Among the challenges faced by Concern in Marsabit was the resistance it met on the part of some communities to change their hygiene and sanitation behaviour, and in particular, to build latrines. Many of the communities in the county are nomadic pastoralists, who move around with their livestock in order to find new pastures for them to graze, and as a result, see investing in the construction of latrines as a waste of resources.
In addition, other agencies and NGOs have been providing high-quality latrines for communities in the area, rather than supporting them to build toilets for themselves. The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach implemented by Concern focuses on triggering a community’s desire for collective change, and helping it to build its own latrines, using locally available resources. Usually, no subsidies or material support of any kind is provided.
Consistent messaging and community conversations
In response to this issue, Concern has worked closely with the Marsabit County Government, which supports the CLTS approach, to ensure consistent messaging on the need for every household to have a toilet, both as a state requirement and to improve community health. Concern has advocated for the different approaches to be harmonised across the county, so that the gains made to date are not lost.
Concern has also been working closely with the communities themselves. Early adopters of latrines have been encouraged to act as ‘change agents’, influencing their friends, families and others to follow suit. Conversations have focused on the fact that even when some members of a community move on in search of fresh pastures or water, women, children and the elderly remain behind in more permanent settlements, and need latrines to support their health, privacy and dignity.
Communities have also been supported to form sanitation committees to promote the use of latrines over open defecation in order to prevent surface water from becoming contaminated.
Surge in staff capacity
Concern has overcome other challenges to meet its water and sanitation targets, including the delayed start to the programme, and the greater than usual rains experienced by the county during the year, which slowed down activities and made it impossible to work on shallow wells, for example. The response was a straightforward surge in staff capacity, with the team putting in additional hours and increasing its efforts to make up for lost time.
