Project Concern International (PCI) is the first NGO in Indonesia to fully implement Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and offer no subsidies to communities. Watch the video here (and listen to some cool music):
View or download VIDEO here (MPEG4)
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This video is about 18 minutes in length and shows how CLTS gets started in a community. The CLTS method emphasizes the importance of “natural leaders,” community members who emerge during the triggering session and demonstrate strong motivation and resolve to help their village become “open defecation free.”
Although the process is still new, the initial figures look promising. In only ten months, 53 villages have been triggered, and nearly 1000 latrines have been built. Six of these villages have declared themselves “100% open defecation free,” while the rest are on their way. All this has been done with a project staff of less than 40 people, and no water and sanitation budget. Though this method may prove the death of huge and costly rural sanitation schemes, it may also spur the reevaluation of the old saying “less is more” and its application to aid and development programs.
CLTS was implemented under the Child Health Opportunities Integrated with Community Empowerment program, or CHOICE, which PCI begun in 2003. With USAID support, this four-year maternal and child health project spans four sub-districts in Pandeglang, an economically and socially depressed region approximately two hours west of Jakarta. Read a full description in this PDF document or visit Livelihoods Connect for more information about CLTS and other programs. You might also like the Handbook on community-led total sanitation and check out Sociolingo’s Africa Blog.
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