By Akewushola Afeez
As part of the efforts to put an end to open defecation in rural communities across Nigeria, the department of Environmental health science under the Centre for Ecological, Environmental Research Management and Studies (CEERMS), Kwara State University has introduced a program called ‘Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS)’.
The program is supervised by the CEERMS Director, Prof Sunday Awe, CLTS Coordinator Dr. Niyi Opasola, and Deputy Coordinator, Dr. Yusuf Adiama respectively.
The Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) was designed for final year students of environmental health science. It is an approach that is based on the principle of triggering collective behavioural change.
The CLTS approach concentrates on ending open defecation as the first significant step and entry point to changing behaviour to curb the menace of open defecation. It starts by enabling people to do their own sanitation profile through appraisal, observation and analysis of their practices of open defecation and the effects these have on their health and environment.
The cardinal objective of the program is to accommodate total sanitation which includes a range of behavioural change, stopping all form of open defecation, ensuring that everyone uses a hygienic toilet, washing hands with soap before preparing food and eating, after using the toilet, and after contact with babies’ faeces, or birds and animals; handling food and water in a hygienic manner, and safe disposal of animal and domestic waste to create a clean and safe environment.
Recall that the Nigerian Government had last week identified Kwara as one of the two states with the highest population in open defecation.
Ever since the program has been introduced, it has really changed the mindset of some of the rural communities in the country. Although, the federal government of Nigeria has also been working on its part to make sure that people are enlightened on open defecation and its environmental hazards. The students of Kwara State University are not limited to communities in Kwara State alone, they are encouraged to extend the program to the Northern, Western and Southern parts of the country.
The final year students from the department will have to move around rural communities across the country and help them facilitate public toilets as a collective action to adopt safe and hygienic sanitation behaviour and to make sure that all households have access to safe sanitation facilities.
The students are expected to instigate a change in sanitation behaviour rather than constructing sanitation infrastructures.
In one of the just-completed project facilitated, the students visited Gbabu community, Asa local Government in Kwara State to sensitize people of the community on why they need to change their sanitation behaviours.
The team leader, Jimoh Kehinde Bashir said that the students gave room for the community to decide together how they finally generate a clean and hygienic environment that benefits everyone.
Bashir added that the students handed over the public toilets to the people of Gbabu community to take charge of proper usage and cleaning habit.
The Coordinator of CLTS Program Dr. Niyi Opasola, stated, “this program has yielded positive dawn for the issue of open defecation in Nigeria through the engagement of our students with some of these communities in the country and making progress to drastically declare our country open defecation free is our major target.
“I urge beneficial communities to sustain hygienic behaviour and environment to inhibit risk associated with ill environment.”
For his part, Hon Abdulkareem Abdulkareem, member representing youth at Nigerian youth parliament and indigene of Asa local government, injected the Federal Government and State Government to collaborate with Center for Ecology and Environmental Research Management Studies, Kwara State University to holistically approach the menace of rising issues of open defecation in the country.