Cleaner toilet, healthier life

After 25 years relieving himself in the open, Mr Hien, a farmer living in Yen Thuy, a mountainous district in Northern Vietnam, now has his first toilet.

 Mr Hien’s toilet is simple but clean. It has surrounding walls, a roof and a door. It is private and safe enough for all six members of his family in Hoa Binh province. The toilet is especially meaningful for his daughter, Phuong, 14.

“Before, I was always scared whenever defecating, especially in the night-time or rainy days. I had to be stealthy like a thief,” she recalls. Phuong used to relieve herself in a hole dug in her family’s backyard, which was smelly, full of flies and didn’t have either door or walls.

Mr Hien decided to invest his small savings to build the new toilet after attending a communication session on water and sanitation organized by World Vision last year, which used the community-led total sanitation (CLTS) approach. At the event, he and other villagers were introduced various models of toilet. They then selected which model was suitable with their financial conditions.

Mr Hien and other participants were especially affected by a demonstration made by World Vision staff during the learning event. The staff member placed a small hair covered in faeces into a cup of fresh water. The water remained clear and looked as if it were clean.

“It is horrible! Now I understand that it is the way that flies land on [faeces] and then land on our water and food. We usually drink that kind of faeces-contaminated water without knowing about the risk,” says Mrs Dinh Thi Day, a member of the community.

After the session, Mr Hien became the first one who volunteered to build a toilet. World Vision’s staff and volunteers gave him technical support whenever he needed it.

Many people across his village started following him. If they had enough money, they built a modern toilet including a lavabo for washing hands. Others who had limited budget preferred simple but clean toilets. For those without enough money or ability to do the labour, World Vision volunteers encouraged community members to share technical or financial support.  

“We spent little money on buying some simple materials and didn’t hire any bricklayers. My husband dug a hole to make our toilet while I roofed it. Since we used the new one, my children have not been [sick] with hygiene-related diseases such as red eyes or diarrhoea”, says Mrs Vi Thi Hien, a neighbour of Mr Hien.

According to Dr Nguyen Huy Nga – Head of Environment Management Department under the Ministry of Health, the Vietnamese government aims for 60 per cent of rural families to have a hygienic toilet by 2015. Dr Nga says Community-led total Sanitation (CLTS) is one of the most effective models to help the government reach the goal.

About 13,900 people, including 4,200 children, have benefited from World Vision’s rural clean water and sanitation programmes in three districts across Vietnam.

Mr Dang Quoc Viet, WV Vietnam’s National Coordinator of Water, Sanitation and Environment, says, “CLTS raises people’s awareness and encourages them to improve their hygienic behaviour by making best of their conditions, instead of receiving subsidy as before.”

“Previously, full financial supports [the provision of subsidies] used to hinder the replication of using hygienic toilets in communities because people became so dependent. We learnt that many hygienic toilets after being built were abandoned because of various reasons. For example, flush toilets were built at the areas that lacked water or communities were unable to repair a toilet when it was broken,” Viet explains.

“With the CLTS model, community members learn from each other. There were only four hygienic toilets in our working area in Yen Thuy district when we first started the model. The number has increased to hundreds,” he adds.

Up to 2,5 billion people in our planet have no toilets and  1.5 billion still practice open defecation, according to statistics on www.worldtoiletday.org. In other word, one in every three people have never had access to private toilets.