Community-Led Total Sanitation: Mapoa committed to end open defecation

Mapoa lives in Nambari, a village located in Tambaga department of the Est region of Burkina Faso.

21 years old and mother of one child, Mapoa is proud to have been able to build, with the help of her husband, the first latrine in the village. When asked why she is satisfied with such an achievement, she responds with a smile: “The latrine has changed my life. I can now relieve myself in complete safety. In addition, the whole village does not know anymore when I go out looking for a safe place to defecate”.

In Nambari, almost all the residents have access to clean water. According to data from the 2019 National Inventory of Hydraulic Works (INOH), access to drinking water is estimated at 95%. Unfortunately, communities are still facing a critical shortage of latrines. People continue open defecation. Children defecate around the houses while adults walk long distances in the bushes to find privacy. Young girls and women are particularly suffering from this situation with the risk of scorpion and snake bites, the lack of privacy, and the risk of sexual abuse by being alone far from the village.

The presence of faeces in the village has long affected families’ health, especially the children who often suffer from diarrheas and parasitic diseases resulting in the deterioration of their nutritional status. Indeed, open defecation increases the risk of transmission of waterborne diseases and the risk of diarrhea which is one of the most dangerous illness for children and newborn.

The triggering of the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) in Nambari took place in June 2020. This sensitization meeting mobilized around 300 residents, more than half of them women, during which they identified the sanitation challenges. “The awareness raised among Nambari people has led to an unprecedented zeal in building latrines to end open defecation. Very quickly, the living environment changed significantly in some households,” says Rakiatou Atieyiguibou, a social mobilization officer at Plan International Burkina Faso.

Mapoa was very impacted by the triggering which made her understand that she was consuming excrement all day long by drinking water polluted by faeces. She then decided to end open defecation. With her husband, Mapoa succeeded in having a family latrine built within the first week after the triggeting. “After digging the pit, my husband took old sheets of metal to build the structure around it until he has the means to make bricks to replace it,” she confides.

The latrine, located at about ten meters outside the compound, is used by all the family members. Inside, Mapoa has put a kettle, water and a jar of ash for hand washing instead of soap. She covered the pit hole with a piece of metal sheet to keep flies away from the latrine. “It’s so convenient and clean. If everyone could do the same ! “she says.

Every morning, Mapoa goes to the borehole to fetch water. She then cleans the house, the courtyard and the toilets. She is very attentive to hygiene practices so that the living environment remains pleasant.

According to Rakiatou Atieyiguibou, 40 family latrines were built in the village after the triggering. The cleanliness of the family environment and hand washing are gradually becoming part of everyone’s habits, following sensitization by UNICEF partner Plan International.

Thanks to UNICEF, with the financial support of the Spanish National Committee, 30 localities, including farming hamlets, were triggered within the framework of the project.