About 2 years ago, when someone entered a village in Agar Malwa district of Madhya Pradesh, they were likely to step on faeces that were on the roadsides and vacant spaces in the village. That’s how rampant open defecation was at that point of time.
In fact, when the district panchayat of Agar Malwa was formed on 1st April, 2015, although there were about 5000 toilets in the district, majority of them were dysfunctional. “We had to build more than 70,000 toilets,” said Collector and District Magistrate, Mr. Durg Vijay Singh.
Lack of awareness among the people and changing their habit of defecating in the open was the main challenge. Further, the district team which was rather small as it was a newly formed district, initially felt quite overwhelmed with the large number of toilets that had to be built with limited resources and making people use them.
Training programmes
Nevertheless to promote people’s participation, they began with motivating their officials at block and district levels through workshops on CLTS (Community Led Total Sanitation) organized at Shajapur. During those events, 191 masons were trained on toilet construction technologies. It led to target wise work plans after which construction of toilets began.
In addition, realizing the importance of CLTS, a 5 day training/orientation workshop was held at Model School for motivators, government officials, GRS, Secretaries, Sarpanchs, anganwadi and ASHA workers, members of Self Help Groups (SHGs), journalists, social workers, NSS, NCC, etc. This training by Mr. Manu Singh (Feedback Foundation) proved to be quite effective as it motivated people from all sections of the society, according to the DC.
At the beginning, the administration faced a lot of resistance. People were reluctant to use toilets let alone build them. In one of the blocks there were people who did not have any concept of washing themselves after defecation, and convincing those people to build toilets and use them was not easy, he added.
Strategies employed
Enormous efforts were made to involve the community in the campaign. Soon after the CLTS training, pre-triggering, triggering and morning and evening follow-ups were carried out. This encouraged people to participate in the campaign. Also, Nigrani Samitis (Janaki Sena, Luv-Kush Sena, Nayak Sena) were formed, night meetings (Ratri Chaupaal) were organised in villages, and Mashaal Yatras were organised to pass the baton of ODF village to the non-ODF villages.
Community involvement
Bharat Mata Chunar Yatras specifically targeted the womenfolk who were encouraged to make a pledge to make their villages ODF. This gave some immediate results as it linked religious sentiments with cleanliness. Further, Jan-Abhiyan Parishad, SHG groups, Anganwadi and ASHA workers, and other government officials were motivated time and again through meetings and trainings. In this regard, the Regional Rural Development Training Centre in Ujjain helped them immensely.
Once the training was done, a Swachhta Rath was sent to villages and movies were screened to spread awareness among villagers about sanitation. Moreover, Sondhiya Sammelan was organised in Bijanagri Village, to motivate the Sondhiya community to build toilets as they were the most resistant to behaviour change. Towards the end, a 7 day Halla Bol programme was organised in the villages with the help of village level motivators and Nigrani Samitis, to promote building and usage of toilets. In addition, whistles and caps were distributed among children who were a part of the Nigrani Samiti and those who worked exceptionally well were also rewarded with sports kit and T-shirts.
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