How to Market and Promote a Urine Diverting Dehydrating Toilet (UDDT)

A program called Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) 1 has been developed for whole villages to embrace sanitation and it has been used successfully for many years. The program is based on the idea that sanitation does not work unless the entire community embraces the program. If any person practices open defecation then it will pollute the entire community and everyone will be exposed to the feces. Search the internet for “Handbook for Community Led Total Sanitation” for a detailed handbook on implementing the program. I have included an overview. UNICEF calls a similar program “Community Approaches to Total Sanitation (CATS)2. A brief description of the program is described below. Complete descriptions of the two programs are available on the internet.

To get the community to embrace sanitation the community must first believe that they have a problem and be willing to solve the problem. People understand that feces are not good and should be avoided, but they don’t see the relationship of open defecation in the bushes to their health issues or dysentery. They also do not see how feces come in contact with the people. The idea that someone else’s feces can impact them is foreign.