Imagine a respectable village man being found defecating in the open by young boys from his own community!

Imagine a woman colliding with her son-in law in the nearby bushes as they both try to find some place to hide and defecate! Imagine living in a community where you no longer receive fresh air but the stench of human feaces!  Imagine, imagine, imagine!

These are but just imaginations of many of you who will have the chance to read this story but these have been real life experiences of many communities in developing countries, including communities in Machinga district, Malawi. Many households in the rural parts of the Machinga did not have toilets and the only place where they could go to defecate is in the nearby bushes. Imagine again what life is like to live without a toilet! Yet this has been the practice of many communities for many years until Heart to Heart Malawi, working with government extension workers from the Ministry of Health, facilitated a process called Community Led Total sanitation (CLTS). 

Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) focuses on igniting a change in sanitation behaviour through a process of social awakening that is stimulated by facilitators from within or outside the community. 

Community members decide together how they will create a clean and hygienic environment that benefits everyone.

Front line staffs from the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Irrigation and Water Development, worked together with Heart to Heart staffs to build community momentum in stopping wide spread open defecation. Utilising different tools, like mapping of defecation areas, transect walk, calculation of shit and medical expenses, facilitators led communities from Malajira and Muwawa villages through a process that eventually made both men and women from these villages bow their heads down, ashamed of their practice of open defecation (OD). 

Yes, this was a moment when both men and women, including children got ashamed!

They could not believe to see, through this facilitation, the extent of open defecation in their own environment, nor could they take it lightly when they saw how flies moved from food to shit and then from shit to food. 

They were not only ashamed but also abhorred the practice of open defecation. 

They were disgusted by their own bad sanitation behaviour. 

They all agreed that OD had to end and that something needed to be done to end this practice!

                         <Officer is sharing schedule with village people>                   <Village people who participated in education>

Communities, with the help of facilitators, therefore embarked on construction and use of household latrines.

Communities celebrated as they constructed their latrines, singing and chanting ‘away with the practice of open defecation!’ 

Community leaders and their people are grateful to the people of the Republic of Korea for their financial support 

that has transformed these communities and more other communities in the nearest future. 

 Women and men from Malajira and Muwawa village no longer live with shame, thanks to KOICA and the people of the Republic of Korea!