On April 4, 2017, a total of 58 residents from Purok Lote North, Brgy. Cebuano, Tupi were educated on Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) facilitated by 8 trained community facilitators who were ably assisted by RHU-Sanitary inspectors and the Mahintana team. The CLTS activity was initiated to help communities understand and realize the negative effects of poor sanitation and empower them to live in a healthy environment.

In this approach, the households went through a participatory process of doing their own sanitation profile through appraisal, observation and analysis of their lifestyle/practices of open defecation and the effects it can bring in their lives. They participated in the process of visiting the location of open defecation called “transect walk”, mapping and indicating places of defecation, faeces calculation and mobility mapping orienting them on the different ways of contaminating diseases caused by unhygienic practices.

This method helped change the community members’ perception and motivated them to change their hygiene and sanitation behaviour and eliminate open defecation. As a result, the community committed to construct their own toilets and a team composed of CLTS facilitators and sanitary inspectors will monitor and validate the installed toilets by first week of May 2017.

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(clockwise from top left photo) Participants drawing a map of their Purok/Sitio and indicated their dwellings and areas of defection; (lower left photo) Ms. Marichu Handog, Sanitary Inspector of MHO-Tupi, explaining the oral-faecal contamination process.

The CLTS is one of the advocacy initiatives of the Health Initiatives and Mitigation Services and Opportunities for Growth of Tupi (HIMSOG-Tupi) project, initiated by Dole Philippines, Inc. in partnership with Mahintana Foundation, Inc.

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