Cambodian communities go for total sanitation without subsidies

Household latrines make life much easier for Cambodian families

Relying mainly on their own resources, more than 2,200 people living in some of Cambodia’s poorest districts now have access to household latrines and no longer defecate in the open.

The Ministry of Rural Department (MRD) and Plan helped the communities by mobilising resources, sharing the benefits of good sanitation, and supporting volunteer leaders in coordinating the process at the community level. 

The first commune to complete the program was Svay Popeas village. After only five weeks, all 95 families had access to latrines, and the residents of Svay Popeas have already noticed changes.

“Now my children and I don’t need to spend a lot of time going to the forest to defecate and my children are healthier with less diarrhoea. I am very happy to see that the people in my village have stopped open defecation completely and that we now live in a healthier environment,” said Mrs. Cho Ren, living in Svay Popeas.

Thanks to the success of four pilot projects, MRD and Plan are planning to expand the approach to another 17 communities. 

Community Led Total Sanitation succeeds by empowering people to improve their environment through self-directed behaviour change. Its low-cost solutions demonstrate that household sanitation can be achieved with the materials and skills available at the village level.

The project’s self-empowering approach also helped the communities and their volunteer leaders to gain a sense of pride and experience in project implementation. In Khan Sor village, the volunteer leader for this project impressed his community so much that they elected him as the new Village Chief.

Unclean water and poor sanitation kill nearly two million children around the world each year. The Community Led Total Sanitation project hopes to contribute to the UN’s Millennium Development Goals of halving the number of people who lack sanitation facilities worldwide and reducing by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five.