https://www.unicef.org/somalia/wes_18936.html
In December 2015, UNICEF’s local partner, an NGO called HEAL, came to their village to persuade the residents to abandon the practice of open defecation. Amina and her husband immediately agreed to build a toilet. By October this year, all the families in the village had followed suit. UNICEF and HEAL provided no incentives, only awareness campaigns and technical assistance. This approach – known as Community-Led Total Sanitation – has been tested and proven in other parts of the world. The villagers put up their own money and constructed the toilets on their own.
“Many families welcomed the idea right away, but many others resisted it,” says Adan Abdullahi Mohamed, Programme Coordinator at HEAL. “The key to the success of the project is to make the people understand that open defecation is an unhygienic practice that can cause serious illness, especially for children and pregnant women. When the community realized that the river where they get their drinking water was contaminated by their own faeces, they were convinced that a toilet is not a luxury but a necessity.”
Wey diideen
In December 2015, UNICEF’s local partner, an NGO called HEAL, came to their village to persuade the residents to abandon the practice of open defecation. Amina and her husband immediately agreed to build a toilet. By October this year, all the families in the village had followed suit. UNICEF and HEAL provided no incentives, only awareness campaigns and technical assistance. This approach – known as Community-Led Total Sanitation – has been tested and proven in other parts of the world. The villagers put up their own money and constructed the toilets on their own.
“Many families welcomed the idea right away, but many others resisted it,” says Adan Abdullahi Mohamed, Programme Coordinator at HEAL. “The key to the success of the project is to make the people understand that open defecation is an unhygienic practice that can cause serious illness, especially for children and pregnant women. When the community realized that the river where they get their drinking water was contaminated by their own faeces, they were convinced that a toilet is not a luxury but a necessity.”
Wey diideen