V. Algunas tendencias
1. Orientación sexual y matrimonio
7.4.1 Benefits of the programme
See the benefits as expressed by people who may be considered disadvantaged across countries in Table 6.
The following box shows examples of the positive im-pacts and results. For more examples see Annex X.
7.4 BENEFITS, CHALLENGES AND RISKS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE POTENTIALLY DISADVANTAGED
©J.E.TIBERGHIEN
Ama, a mother who uses a wheelchair in Togo said:
“I can now use the latrine while I used to crawl amongst the teak trees. During the rainy season, open defecation was tough for me as I had to crawl in the mud. It is now comfortable. They have put a wooden mortar bowl, which they drilled and that I use as a seat. I have noticed that I have less belly ache. I have to thank the facilitator because I had really no idea that things could be different.”
MHM awareness raising at
community level in Senegal, has led to the situation where it’s now acceptable to hang up pads on a line in front of male members of the household (see the washing line that is used to hang and
dry pads). ©S. FERRON
Table 6: Benefits of the programme for people who may be considered disadvantaged
Benefits
•
Safety: Safety for women; Worried about rape cases for girls and women when practicing OD•
Convenience: Easy to defecate in the rainy season and at night; Easy to manage child’s faeces•
Ease of use: Easy to use; Needed during pregnancy and [after] delivery.•
Pride / no embarrassment / self-esteem: When have guests it feels nice to show them the toilet; Pride in our household;“The toilet is an ornament in our house – it brings us prestige”.
•
Health: Prevention of disease / health•
Dignity: Dignity; Social dignity; It is humiliating to use other’s toilets, more privacy, easier to manage periods; No longer stepping in other people’s shit [noted by people who are sight impaired and older].•
Environmental: Reduce flies; Reduce smell; Reduce environmental pollution•
Other: Stop eating each other’s shit (although not commonly mentioned); Not good to defecate outside; It’s a natural process so we have to build one•
Income generation: Through use of land for growing vegetables that used to be used for OD.•
If practice OD: Face risks from snakes and insects; Have to stand up if someone comes in-between; No good aspects – people see you naked; Women and girls can only go morning and evening – men and boys can go anytime; Don’t eat so don’t need to go to the toiletPotential positive impacts from the above – expressed by various respondents
•
Empowerment of disadvantaged groups•
Breaking down stereotypes•
Can encourage a feeling of being part of the community•
Increased respect and confidence•
Resolving conflicts•
Increased sense of community / social cohesion•
Change in gender roles•
Increased harmony in the household (noted by a woman in a polygamous household)•
Leads to further community development activities – such as total sanitation, immunization A number of programme respondents also noted thebenefits of increased capacities and empowerment:
“But there is an important aspect of enlarged capacities resulting from these CLTS interventions, which result in a potential for greater community development. For instance, teams of leaders have stronger capacities to work with peers and NGOs” and “It can really solve so-cial conflicts. It is the only time in my whole career that I find an approach that promotes social cohesion” (KII re-spondents, Togo). See Section 9.1 for more discussion.
Table 7: Challenges and risks from the programme to people who may be considered disadvantaged
Challenges
•
Can require poor people to sell assets (cattle, land)•
Taking loans at high interest rates•
Losing surety on loans•
Constructing shallow pits (to give appearance of having a latrine) that fill up quickly•
Poor quality construction so latrines regularly collapse•
Lack of adaptations for those with disabilities Potential negative impacts from the above•
Stress / distress•
Frustration / anger•
Increased stigma of disadvantaged groups•
Increased vulnerability to risks•
Unable to farm and feed family due to loss of land7.4.2 Challenges and risks faced by the most disadvantaged in GSF-supported programmes
See Table 7 for challenges and risks expressed by peo-ple considered disadvantaged across countries.
In addition, the respondents of the online survey indicated follow-up challenges faced by the most dis-advantaged. See Figure 8.
The French speaking responses were similar with only slight variations. See Annex VIII.
The box below shows examples of some of the challenges and risks.
Two old men took out (separate) loans from the cooperative to build their latrines, but they could not pay them back so the cooperative have taken the land title from them (Nepal)
A poor family sold their only piece of land to be able to build a latrine (Nepal GSF case studies report, 2014) In more than one of the communities visited, the CLTS triggerer also offered households a loan to construct a toilet, at very high interest rates (24 percent) (Nepal)
Samba is sixteen years old and cannot walk so uses a wheelchair. He doesn’t go to school as it is difficult to get there. Samba has 10 people in his immediate family and they have 2 toilets in the compound – both traditional style (wood slab covered with concrete and roofless straw/corrugated iron superstructure).
However, Samba has to use a potty outside the latrine as the door is not wide enough for his wheelchair and his mother usually has to help him. At night, they put the potty on the veranda and Samba can just about manage to get out and use it on his own. He would prefer to have more independence and use a seat in the latrine. A commode at night would also be more comfortable. (Senegal)
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Individual shaming by other community members Lack of knowledge about equality issues by the facilitator Lack of leadership from government/executing agency/
Exclusion from follow up Excluded from leadership roles or from being facilitators Exclusion from pre-triggering Exclusion from triggering Marginalisation of certain members within the household Local customs and taboos Difficulty in sustaining community support for those who Unable to construct own toilet because of cost Physically unable to construct toilet
Not a problem here Minor challenge (easily addressed)
Important challenge (could be addressed if greater focus on this) Major challenge (difficult to solve) Figure 8: Online survey result (English speaking) – Challenges for the most disadvantaged
What do you think are the most important challenges faced by the most vulnerable/
marginalized/ disadvantaged people or groups in the GSF programme?
(36 English responses)
In a number of countries community-led follow-up teams or patrols were reported to undertake the fol-low up to check on general progress and encourage action. This is understood to be a critical activity in encouraging people to build latrines. However, it is not without challenges. See box below.
Pressurising everybody in the community to build a latrine means that even the poorest and most disad-vantaged are placed under this pressure and stress.
Examples of people met who were in this position in-cluded, a man with a very small house built in the gap between two larger houses and who only had a patch of land at the front that was only the width of a toilet.
It also included a number of women headed-house-holds with responsibility for a number of other family members and no male or only a young male to support the family. Families including a person with disabili-ties said they struggle to even get enough to eat and one woman was visibly upset talking about her
situ-ation. Several families had men with mental health conditions that were not able to work. The team met one very vulnerable family with several members with mental health problems and only the wife and one son who do not. They live on the old age pension of the grandfather. In one family, where both husband and wife had a disability (the wife with leprosy and the husband who lost his leg due to gangrene), the hus-band defecates on the floor of his house and his wife collects it up and disposes of it outside. The strategy of not informing people of the available subsidy has been developed because of a real fear that this will under-mine motivation to build, but is this level of pressure really reasonable or necessary? If it is harmful to let people know that they are entitled to subsidy, then more effort is needed to facilitate support internal to the community so that the most vulnerable are not put under such stress for long periods of time. This area requires increased attention to find alternative solu-tions. See Annex IX for more details of this example.
In the Terai district in Nepal the team participated in a ‘patrol’ in a non-ODF community, which had been triggered two years previously. The population belonged mainly to the Musahar Dalit community, one of the most marginalized and historically excluded communities in Nepal.
Many of the households have little or no land on which they can build a latrine and many are clearly very vulnerable and very poor. Some are entitled to a contribution for their toilet from the government, being considered as ‘ultra poor’.
But despite the fact that they are entitled to support, pressure is brought to bear on even the poorest households until over 90-95 percent have built a latrine.
This is because of the concern (widely expressed by all involved in implementation from national level government to triggerers), that if
the availability of subsidy for the poorest becomes widely known at the start of the process, then many people will stop construction in order to ask for support.
See Section 9.5 for discussion on this case study.
Photo above: Female community member sharing the challenge she has in constructing a latrine, given her family’s lack of land ownership.
The only land this woman (pictured above), her family and a relative’s family own is the
internal courtyard (no more than twice the size of what is seen in this image) between two small buildings with a few rooms that they share. Hence, she has started to build her pour flush latrine inside one of the small rooms in her house.
The provision of communal latrine blocks with allocations of individual toilet units per household is being considered as a solution by the government, but households have not been informed of this plan.