World Toilet Day: Disease falls in Sawe village

Villagers digging a latrine in Sawe, Dompu, Indonesia

17 November 2008: Children in Sawe, Indonesia, are celebrating World Toilet Day on 19 November as cases of diarrhoea and intestinal worms plummet in their village, thanks to a Plan-supported sanitation project.

More than 2,200,000 children die from diarrhoea around the world each year.  Sawe, in Dompu, West Nusa Tenggara province, used to have high rates of the disease - but not any more.

Figures from April to July reveal that not one case of diarrhoea or intestinal worms was reported among the village's 1,500 inhabitants.

Health risks

The Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) project began in February, following Plan-supported training for a small team of local government staff, community and religious leaders and young people.

The team worked to raise awareness of the health risks of defecating out in the open - such as diarrhoea from food contamination - and helped 12 villagers build their own latrines.

In turn the villagers transferred this information and latrine know-how to friends, family and colleagues. Social and religious occasions were also used to raise awareness.

Community power

The community-led aspect of the project has been instrumental in its success: previous attempts by agencies to introduce latrines had not worked, open defecation continued and installed latrines fell into disrepair.

But with the launch of the CLTS project, demand for latrines among the villagers has risen and existing structures have been repaired and put to use.

Now 199 latrines and 6 public toilets have been set up, and open areas are defecation-free and safe for children to play.

Open defecation-free

In August, just as the Indonesian Minister of Health launched a CLTS project covering 10,000 villages across the country, the people of Sawe declared their village free from open defecation.

In October, the village of Panimbo in Grobogan, central Java province, also joined Sawe in becoming open defecation-free with help from Plan.

World Toilet Day celebrates the importance of toilets and sanitation. Learn more about Plan’s global water and sanitation work.