Mahmud Konneh recently finished building a latrine in his village, Tilorma, in the Kenema District of eastern Sierra Leone. It is one of 30 new latrines that have been constructed by Tilorma villagers under the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach.
© UNICEF Sierra Leone/2008/Davies
[...] This sanitation initiative is being supported by UNICEF and the UK Department for International Development, in collaboration with the Sierra Leonean Ministry of Health and Sanitation, and non-governmental partners.
Since the January 2008 introduction of CLTS in Sierra Leone, 103 villages have stopped practicing open defecation. As a result, the participating communities are cleaner, more hygienic and less likely to suffer from outbreaks of diarrhoea.
Source: Issa Davies, UNICEF, 28 Oct 2008
This is the most appropriate approach for extermely poor communities of Northern Sierra Leone who are in desprate need of sanitation facilities. It is however, important to provide safe drinking water for all communities that are declear open Defication Free(ODF).
This articles misrepresents the situation and is out of date by five years. Whilst CLTS in Sierra Leone went off with a bang in 2008, promoted strongly by Unicef, and it is trues that thousands of latrines have been constructed in the past few years, it is estimated that about 30% are still standing as they are made with local materials and collapse after the first heavy rains, so many people have reverted to open defecation again.