CLTS Blog posts
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CLTS strategically provokes strong emotions such as shock, disgust, embarrassment and shame and the concurrent (positive) emotions like pride, self-respect and dignity, to trigger community’s collective action towards stopping open defecation.
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There has been an interesting debate going on about the elements of shame, fear and disgust used during CLTS triggering session. The debate has been between those who believe that the element of shame as applied during a CLTS trigger is unethical as it amounts to degrading and embarrassing the community, and those who believe that the element of shame is actually positive, and that it indeed awakens the community to the realities of open defecation.
During the Nanded workshop, we spent the first day sharing our experiences in Nairobi and learning about the work in Nanded. We then split up into groups for field visits. I saw four different areas of Nanded.
India’s population accounts for approximately 1/7th of the world’s population. The Government of India has the immense challenge of governing and providing services for over 1.2 billion people. As we were touching down in Mumbai on the 14th March 2012, and the infamous smell of the city hit our noses, I was reminded of the enormity of the task of governance and service provision for 1/7th of the world.
I was in Delhi recently. It was great meeting people. There was much debate and discussion going on about sanitation and hygiene. These are much higher up the public agenda than before. And the new Minister, Jairam Ramesh, was spoken of highly by everyone. If anyone can make a difference through political leadership, perhaps he can.
The workshop on urban CLTS in Nanded, Maharashtra, was an occasion with much to learn. It was the first time when urban CLTS experiences had been brought together – from Mathare in Nairobi, Kalyani in West Bengal, and Nanded itself, with its population of a little over half a million. The only other major urban experience of CLTS I know of is Rosso in Mauritania, though I hope my saying this will provoke others into giving other examples, so that soon we will have a wider range of experiences to learn from.
This week, on the SuSanA blog, Lukas Ulrich put forward the argument that CLTS cannot work and should not be used in an urban environment. His argument is as follows:
There are approximately 800 languages in PNG! That’s close to 800 versions of the word ‘shit’, and during past workshops when facilitators are asked to mention the word that means ‘shit’ in their own language, there’s actually quite a competitiveness to see who has the most extravagant translation. “e” or variations of the phrase “e”, seems to be quite common in some parts of the country.
South Sudan is a country that has suffered the effects of a devastating civil war that lasted about 25 years. It is just in the last 6 years that the country has enjoyed relative peace. But even then, there are still sporadic and intermittent episodes of inter ethnic and political rivalry that many times results in loss of life and property. The prolonged civil war immensely contributed to the stifling of development in the country. The road network has been virtually non existent in most parts of the country, the health and education systems have been at rudimentary level for a long time. Access to basic commodities like food, blankets, medicines and so on was a nightmare for majority of the population. Many were forced by circumstances to either flee the country or live in the internally displaced persons camps due to the hostile security situation that prevailed in the country at the time.
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