Communities stop human waste from contaminating their food

Homestead pit latrine being constructed in Kilifi, Kenya

7 January 2008: Plan communities in Africa and Asia are cleaning up their act as the result of a new programme that gives them good reasons to improve sanitation and puts them in control of doing it.

Jaribuni in Kilifi, Kenya has joined a growing number of towns and villages that have banned open defecation after being educated about how human waste can contaminate food and water supplies and increase the risk of disease.

Crying shame

Mr Charo, secretary of the Jaribuni sanitation steering team said:

“I was talking to a community member who was very disgusted with open defecation. He said it is very sad when we learn that we’ve been consuming our own shit. He could not hold it any more and he started crying as a way of expressing his disgust and shame.”

Ban extension

Jaribuni’s residents felt so strongly about the issue that they surprised Plan staff by pressing ahead with efforts to extend the ban on open defecation to other villages.

As they said, having Jaribuni village defecation free was not much help if people from neighbouring villages were continuing to contaminate shared fields and water sources.

Previous efforts to improve sanitation in developing countries have often failed because new toilets have not been accompanied by adequate explanation to communities about why they should abandon habits going back centuries and use them.

Whistle blowers

Jaribuni is the latest village to embrace Plan’s community-led total sanitation programme. As well as education, this involves communities constructing household latrines and working together to embarrass people who refuse to co-operate.

This can involve volunteers, including children, blowing whistles at people they find defecating in the open and ordering them to clean up their own faeces.

Abdur Rahman Khandakar is a farmer in Saatnala, Dinajpur, Bangladesh, which is now open defecation free. He said: “Before these awareness campaigns, we observed, many people used the road side as their toilets….

“But after raising their awareness, we observe a significant change in the behaviour of the community people. The behavior of the elders and the older people is difficult to change. But they are also changing their behavior these days.”

Read about Plan's global position on water and sanitation