Are You Open Defecation Free?

We are now in Nairobi, where—as observed by one group member—everything is a buzz of “organized chaos.” The disarray of cars attempting to maneuver four cars into a three-lane road reminds me of Rome and Taipei. We are eight students and two project leaders total. We leave for Mombasa tomorrow.

This morning, we went to the UN headquarters in Nairobi to meet with David and Sophie from UNICEF. They spoke to us about methods for improving sanitation and water quality in rural areas. One key approach to deal with WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) issues was CATs, or Community Approaches to Total Sanitation. (The UN is notorious for its prolific acronym usage, so I promise I won’t overload this post with too many.) While we gave a cursory glance to problems such as household water treatments, the discussion primarily focused on safe excreta disposal and hand washing with soap. One of the organization’s goals is to promote ODF—open defecation free—practices in villages. Once a village becomes ODF, they can even get a sign that says "This village is open defecation free!" The whole idea behind CATs is that sustainable change must come from within the community. UN facilitators are only present to “ignite” a sense of disgust towards open defecation practices so that the community can then discuss more sanitary options. The key behind this, Sophie told us, was to facilitate, not lecture or teach. But, I asked her, isn’t it difficult to find a way to only facilitate, not teach? After all, by promoting such a sense of disgust and being straightforward, can’t facilitators also come off as overbearing?

That is why, Sophie answered, we need strong facilitators who can inspire discussion with humor but still get to the point.

The meeting lasted over an hour and reminded me a bit of the meetings I attended while working at an NGO at the UN headquarters in NYC. The UN is often criticized for talking too much and acting too little. But are these dialogues complete bogus? Perhaps, but I think that to some extent, dialogue is important too, if only to establish what needs to be done. I wasn’t sure if I got a satisfactory explanation from Sophie about the whole facilitation process, but I think I can only understand it better with hands-on experience.