Kenya

CLTS was introduced in Kenya in May 2007, following the participation of three Plan Kenya WATSAN staff in the two regional training workshops in Tanzania and Ethiopia in February 2007. Since then, the approach has been rolled out in all 8 Development Units where Plan operates. From the first ODF village (Jaribuni in Kilifi District) in November 2007, the number of open defecation free communities is now (April 2011) close to 1,000 in and outside Plan operation areas. Towards the end of 2009, the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation (MOPHS) formally approved and recommended CLTS as a potential approach for improving sanitation coverage in the country by including it in its national strategy.

Plan Kenya, in collaboration with MOPHS as well as other stakeholders including UNICEF, WSP, NETWAS, KWAHO (Kenya Water for Health Organization), World Vision, Aga Khan Foundation and Red Cross, has continued to offer CLTS training to various partners both at the provincial and district levels. Over 2,000 facilitators have been successfully trained and it is expected that these people will in turn offer the same training to staff from various implementing partners in the areas they work in for the purposes of scaling up sanitation.

Following these training sessions throughout the country, many NGOs including other agencies and organizations involved in WASH programming, such as UNICEF and WSP, have adopted the approach and subsequently rolled out CLTS activities in their areas of operation. With support from these partners and other stakeholders, rural communities are steadily turning the CLTS initiative into a strong social movement with great potential to address the sanitation and hygiene problems in the country.

Increasingly, community meetings that are normally convened to discuss sanitation improvement strategies at the household level include other social-economic development initiatives, such as children’s performance in school, birth registration, kitchen gardening, mother-child health care education to mothers, merry-go-round savings and loans amongst women, adult education, as well as various income generating activities (such as livestock, poultry, bee-keeping, etc.) that are positively impacting on the communities.

In 2010 Plan Kenya, in partnership with Community Cleaning Services (CCS) (a local social enterprise that is co-founded by SC Johnson, a global manufacturer of household cleaning products) started to implement a pilot project titled Urban Community Led Total Sanitation (UCLTS) in four villages within the larger Mathare slums. Mathare is the second largest slum in Nairobi, after Kibera. The majority of its inhabitants have no access to sanitation facilities. Many of the sanitation facilities that do exist are not connected to the main sewer lines, and even those that are connected, are not functional as the sewers are either clogged or broken. This sorry state of affairs is what has given rise to what is commonly referred to as flying toilets, with people defecating in plastic bags and simply disposing of them wherever they deem fit, including on their neighbors’ rooftops or door steps. Others resort to using plastic tins commonly known as kasuku and subsequently emptythe shit into the nearest trenches. This results in huge mountains of uncollected garbage and human waste strewn everywhere, overflowing/open drainages and sewers, contaminated water, polluted rivers, filled up toilets, a filthy environment and flies all over. Thus the slum dwellers, especially children, are exposed to a myriad of health problems.

Plan Kenya and CCS continue to facilitate dialogue that brings together all the key stakeholders in the urban context to find solutions to the poor sanitation situation in the project area. The project has received very encouraging support from the local community for its enormous innovation and ability to transform people’s minds.

Plan Kenya and CCS are also involved in GIS mapping for Mathare slums in partnership with GroundTruth (GT) initiative to map the entire Mathare slums to create community information and news tools like Voice of Mathare and Mathare networks. This will enable youth in particular and the community more generally to access information and data that directly impact on their lives and allow them to participate more effectively. A number of different thematic mappings, (including sanitation and mapping of open defecation areas and are in progress. CCS will use sanitation-related data and other elements from the map to demonstrate the need for clean toilets and leverage support for the CLTS initiatives by way of involving all stakeholders.

Plan Kenya is also working in partnership with Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) using a local popular comedy series Vitimbi to popularize CLTS campaigns. Vitimbi is watched by over 4 million people in the country and is led by characters whose identity and popularity resonate very well with the audience. It stimulates discussion about sanitation and hygiene, and, with humour, challenges cultural norms, beliefs and practices in Kenyan society. Its capacity to trigger interpersonal communication and inject sanitation in daily conversations has steadily continued to help spread CLTS in communities beyond Plan operation areas.

Plan Kenya has formed a CLTS Unit that will provide professional services to organizations interested in the implementation of CLTS, and Urban Community Led Total Sanitation. The unit is responding to the increasing desire by many organizations to implement CLTS and aims to fill the gaps in technical know- how through training and support.