Magourou community says 'no!' to open air defecation

Credit: WaterAid

Magourou, a small community located in Garango Local Government, Central East region of Burkina Faso is like all other villages of this country, except one difference. The peculiarity here is that every single compound owns at least one latrine. This is rather rare in a country where sanitation coverage is only 10% and 14% respectively in rural and urban area.

This noticeable achievement can be ascribed to a safe water, sanitation and hygiene programme implemented by DAKUPA which is one of our local partners.

With initially five communities to start with in 2001, this programme has now extended to 25 others in the four Local Governments of Boulgou province in the Central East region. Building and use of these household latrines, compounded by hygiene sessions have helped reduce the morbidity rate of water related diseases such as typhoid, cholera, etc. Additionally, this frees up more time to community members to undertake social and economic activities and improve their well-being.

Trained HPVs with bicycles provided to promote hygiene at household level

Credit: WaterAid

Also in farms, women are less worried and more at ease when picking vegetables to be used for their meals during the rainy season.

Prestige is another benefit enjoyed by the 3,548 people in Magourou and derived from owning latrines at home. As a multiplier effect to this, neighbour villages which now see Magourou as a reference is hygiene and sanitation in the province attempted to do similar efforts.

A THREE-FOLD APPROACH

DAKUPA, which is responsible for the implementation of the project, has used a three step approach.

KAP study

DAKUPA has carried out a Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice (KAP) study on hygiene and sanitation status in Magourou prior to the start of the pilot phase in 2001. This study enabled to define, in a participatory manner, the good practices that are relevant to keep the village clean. Then, messages were developed on a variety of topics including on safe water, hygiene, water point maintenance; water collection, transport, storage and use-; and the safe disposal of human waste which involves the building, use and maintenance of household latrines. Each topic was dealt with over a period of four to six months.

Sensitisation by Hygiene Promotion Volunteers (HPV)

An on-going Hygiene Promotion Volunteers training session.

Credit: WaterAid

The "peer education approach" involves choosing people by and among the community members to sensitise households/compounds. In pairs, man and woman communicate good hygiene practices in compounds. They work on a voluntary basis but are incentivised for their contribution to the programme's activities. For instance, during the first years of the programme, they were given various household tools such as buckets, soap, kettles and then bicycles in 2004 to ease their movement throughout the village areas they cover.

HPVs have been trained and given sensitisation tools for use in households/compounds.

These household visits ensure that by the end of the sensitisation campaign, everyone will have been sensitised. During visits, HPVs discuss practices based on existing situation experienced by the household/compound. They also hold meetings at neighbourhood levels with each social group.

Household latrine construction

Masons are trained and given materials.

Credit: WaterAid

Two local masons were identified by the community to build latrines in Magourou and they have been trained and given material to do the construction work - Sanplat latrines.

Contributions for latrine construction:

• Project support: training and material for masons and HPVs and provision of material for slab construction - cement, iron and mason's workforce.
• Community contribution: pit digging, aggregate, fencing and labour.

During the pilot phase in 2004, community members paid full costs of their latrines. But an evaluation showed that notwithstanding people's will to have latrines, they could not afford the high cost of some equipments and building materials such as cement and iron. To address this, DAKUPA and WaterAid decided to fund the cost of slab used to build the improved latrines.

Coupled with sensitisation on hygiene, WaterAid and DAKUPA train women groups to make soap.

LIMITS OF THE APPROACH

Stages in SanPlat latrine construction.

Credit: WaterAid

Although Magourou has achieved 100% coverage, the approach used shows the following limitations:

• The community is yet to make household latrine construction systematic as evidenced by the new houses built after the full coverage which do not have these sanitation facilities.
• There is need for the project to respond to support expressed by communities to build latrines in their farm 'huts' where they live and work in the rainy season;
• Sustainability of subsidised latrines is an issue as  sensitisation work did bring about the mentality change expected from Magourou community; households heads of with latrines requiring repair are still waiting for the project's support to do it;
• Low involvement of local government's technical services dealing with sanitation.

CLTS: A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO SANITATION

Community Led Total Sanitation builds on community participation and aims at stimulating and empowering people to end open air defecation and then build and systematically use household latrines. CLTS is about behaviour change and empowering communities to manage their own hygiene and sanitation issues.

Once again, Magourou experience highlights the need for water, hygiene and sanitation projects and programmes to focus on research, testing and scale up of new approaches in order to find out solutions to the challenges faced so far. This is a key challenge to take up, are we to achieve the MDGs. WaterAid Burkina Faso's decision to support the implementation of CLTS and establishment of water and sanitation technical Units in its intervention areas is in keeping with this.