The crux of the success of the Community led Total sanitation (CLTS) methodology lies in igniting collective action in the community to address their own sanitation issues. Women have been at the forefront of this action in many communities, emerging as Natural Leaders and leading the change from the front. This is one such case story of a Natural Leader in an open defecation free (ODF) slum community in Kalyani Municipality that became the first ODF urban local body in India in 2009.

Geeta Biswas, 50, is a Natural Leader in Vidyasagar Colony in Kalyani Municipality, Nadia district, West Bengal, India. Vidyasagar Colony was the first slum community, among the 52, to achieve open defecation free (ODF) status in Kalyani Municipality.

‘The CLTS triggering at Vidyasagar Colony inspired locals to take control of their present situation, which was taken up fiercely by women,’ said Geeta, whose interest in social issues was nurtured during the time that she started a self-help group called “Swarnajayanti’ involving all the women in the community. “As a group we undertook a number of community development services and income generation activities which helped in making the women independent and self-reliant.” The women in Vidyasagar Colony were thus already a force to reckon with during the time that the Municipality health department approached them to implement community led sanitation initiatives.

Geeta Biswas pointing out to an open defecation map in a triggering exercise in Vidyasagar Colony. Photo: Amit Sengupta/CLTS Foundation Global

As Geeta explains, women participated very actively during the triggering exercise and hence were also engaged in the post-triggering phase. “As part of the self-help group, we used to meet once or twice a week to discuss various issues. We used this platform to discuss how we could improve sanitation in our community. It was very natural.”

Geeta reveals that the CLTS triggering was an eye opener for people in the community. “We also realised that it was not difficult to make changes. The cost of building a toilet also was very low. We asked ourselves what had stopped us from having our own toilets earlier?” She said that as a leader of her group, she invested her time in mobilizing women from her group and other women in the community to change their sanitation behaviour and practices. “We would go door-to door trying to get people to act fast after the triggering. But it was not easy.”

The women in Vidyasagar Colony were thus already a force to reckon with during the time that the Municipality health department approached them to implement community led sanitation initiatives. Photo: Amit Sengupta/CLTS Foundation Global

Geeta noted that the challenge was not that people did not understand what they had to do but in taking the decision to spend money. “In some households, the men and women jointly made the spending decisions. In some others, women had a tough time convincing the men in their households. It boiled down to them not wanting to listen to what the women were telling them,” she recounts. Geeta recalls that she had to face humiliation many a times when household members, mainly men, would not listen to what she had to say. “But we persisted. And the power of the collective won them over eventually. After everyone built their toilets, they were thankful to us.” According to Geeta, empowering each woman to come together and take charge was important. Collective action by the women and other community members was a key factor in making the community ODF.

Geeta Biswas pointing out to an open defecation map in a triggering exercise in Vidyasagar Colony. Photo: Amit Sengupta/CLTS Foundation Global

Every household started building their own toilets with technical advice from the Municipality Town planning officer as and when required. After the community was declared ODF, Geeta was offered a cash reward for all her efforts, which she refused to take stating that her real reward was in watching the transformation of her community from an extremely dirty one to the clean place that she now resides in. ‘I feel extremely proud of the proactive role that women have played in making this Colony ODF. This is the biggest reward and my greatest achievement so far’.

Note to Editors: This case story is part of a study titled “The impact of CLTS on women’s health in urban slums – The case of Kalyani Municipality”, a joint collaborative effort between the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex and the CLTS Foundation Global as part of a project within an Accountable Grant funded by UK Aid from the UK’s Department for International Development.

By Preetha Prabhakaran – Programme Manager, CLTS Foundation Global

Cover Photo: Geeta Biswas during one triggering exercise in Vidyasagar Colony, Kalyani, West Bengal, India. Photo: Amit Sengupta/CLTS Foundation Global

The post ‘Open Defecation Free Vidyasagar Colony is My Reward’: Voice of a Natural Leader in Kalyani appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.

By AmitSengupta

You have probably heard of this place or perhaps not. It’s an industrial town tucked away around 50 kms from Kolkata. It’s primarily a quintessential planned urban township but that belies the other reality that this township faced at one point – a lurking sanitation and hygiene crisis which people living across its slums faced and struggled to overcome.

We are talking about Kalyani a bustling municipality in the district of Nadia, which is now an Open Defecation Free (ODF) area. Kalyani’s journey to zero defecation in the open began in the year 2006-06. It was declared an ODF municipality by the government of India in the year 2008. But the journey of this bustling township to ODF was a tough one.

It was at the intervention of the then chairman of Kalyani municipality, Dr. ShantanuJha (he is now an academician attached with Bidhan Chandra KrishiVishwavidyalaya) which was instrumental in triggering the transformational journey of Kalyani to an ODF township. It was his untiring efforts that brought this municipality into the national (it won the National Urban Water Award in 2009) and international radar (much before the Government of India’s flagship sanitation and hygiene campaigns grabbed newsprint).

Dr. Jha adopted the community led total sanitation approach to tackle the staring on-your-face sanitation crisis. He got in touch with Dr. Kamal Kar and the team at CLTS Foundation Global in 2005-06 to understand more about the approach and plan an intervention on behalf of the municipality. Being at the helm of affairs at the municipality Dr. Jha had all the power and authority to bring a change. More than that, he showed a persistent spirit to learn about the CLTS approach and took the challenge head on.

Speaking to CLTS Foundation Global, Dr. Jha said: “There were about 51 slums surrounding the municipality which didn’t the basic facilities of toilets. These were mostly unrecognized lands and hence people and workers living in these areas were deprived from government’s interventions and schemes. The community was used to defecation in the open in the absence of latrines.” The chairman had a mandate to implement the Kolkata Urban Sanitation Programme funded by the DFID. Dr. Jha reminisces: “At that time, we decided not to use the KUSP’s project fund for construction of toilets, initially, in the slums. We rather decided to tackle the behavioral issues and challenges and sanitation and hygiene awareness campaigns.”

“The CLTS approach was the most flexible of a development model I had heard of. It was about breaking the barrier. Even if the slum dwellers’ land was not recognized, we could address the issue by talking to the communities. I also had an able medical officer Dr. KasturiBakshi who worked tirelessly on this project,” said Dr. Jha while discussing about his team.

The chairman said that their approach in intervening in the slums was bottom up and participatory. “The community didn’t’ feel the presence of the municipality during the project. That was an added advantage for us since they completely owned the whole process. Our team did regular stakeholder consultations with elderly people, women and girls, children and youth. We selected some natural leaders in the slums who were instrumental in motivating and influencing the larger community. They were the local champions in triggering change,” he observed.

This created an enabling environment in execution of the project. In the meantime there were rounds of visits from Government authorities and senior ministry officials got to know about the stories of change. Kalyani municipality and Dr. Jha and his team gradually became recognized at the state and national level. Their two years of consistent efforts and community intervention started showing results when the slum dwellers stopped defecation in the open.

“The municipality was declared ODF in 2008-09. I still remember a call I received from a senior bureaucrat from the state government who jovially asked ‘How did you declare yourself ODF and which mechanisms you followed?’.Kalyani municipality was finally recognized by Government of India when we received the National Urban Water Award from the President of India in 2009. Even today when the people of the slums recognize me and talks about the transformational journey they undertook together with our team, nothing can be more satisfying than that,” recalls a proud Dr. Jha.

The post CLTS Champions Interview: CLTS in Kalyani appeared first on CLTS Foundation Global.