Despite lot of efforts made by different stakeholders in the country, rural WATSAN context still estimates safe drinking water coverage as 97.5% actual coverage again comes down to 74% because of arsenic contamination in the ground water source. Sanitation coverage for rural area is 77.75% at the moment as per GoB statement, which in cases goes down to 15% even now. Before October 2003, the noted coverage status of the country was 33% and far worse when VERC was struggling to find a more effective approach to address the situation. Accordingly, VERC innovated approach of 100% Sanitation in the country during the implementation of its Phase – III project activities that was started in 1999 with financial and technical assistance of WaterAid Bangladesh. Under the new approach, VERC has enabled hundreds of communities achieve 100% sanitation coverage in seven sub-districts with increased access to safe water supply. The approach has already been taken up by many of the sector NGOs in Bangladesh and other countries within the region and beyond. Many of its lessons have been reflected in the national policy documents.

THE APPROACH:
The approach is based on the assumption that communities have their own strength and willingness to overcome their own WATSAN problems. Therefore, the role of field workers is that of facilitator enabling communities to analyze their current situation, identify areas for improvement, plan how to improve them and then implement the plans. It focuses on social development using a process of institution building and community empowerment other than concentrating on the delivery of services. The approach also recognizes that in the area of WATSAN, the behaviours of an individual and households have a direct impact on the health and well being of others. Therefore, to bring about a sustainable improvement in the quality of life and health of the rural people in Bangladesh a whole community and ultimately the whole Union/Municipality view was taken up and presently VERC is concerned with Upazila (sub-district) coverage. The term 100% Sanitation is used to reflect this view.

VERC believes it is important that 100% sanitation goes beyond the installation of latrines and tubewells in a given area, so field staff assisted the communities to work out behaviour focused definition of 100% sanitation.

• No open defecation or open/hanging latrine use
• Effective hand washing after defecation and before taking or handling food
• Food and water covered
• Good personal hygienic practices
• Latrines well managed
• Using sandals when defecating

• Clean courtyards and roadsides
• Garbage disposal in a hygienic way
• Safe water use for all domestic purposes
• Water points well managed
• Waste water disposal in hygienic way
• No spitting in public places

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT:

Main entry point of the program is the community. Accordingly, each and every component of the program is community based. The process involves community people in all aspects of problem identification, planning/resource identification, implementation, monitoring and evaluation from their own perspective. This introduces ownership of the program as well as ensures sustainability for the future. As part of the community, local Government body, GO, NGO, CBOs and other stakeholders are also involved in the process for greater involvement and efficiency of the program approach.

IMPLEMENTING THE APPROACH:
The role of VERC in the 100% sanitation approach is that of a facilitator working with the community to recognize their current situation and the need for improvement. Once the community decides it wants to change, the facilitator's role is to work with the community to help them identify areas for improvement, to develop a plan for making the improvements and then implement these plans. The key to the success of the approach is the involvement of the community members themselves in all aspects of planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

The key activities in the approach are outlined below -

1. ENTRY INTO AND MOBILIZATION OF A COMMUNITY
A team of facilitators uses the following tools to visualize the current situation in the community and to motivate the community to change their WATSAN situation both in rural and urban contexts.

ENTRY INTO AN AREA/VILLAGE/MAHALLA AND RAPPORT BUILDING:
The facilitation team will have entered into a selected area and introduced themselves through rapport building with the people. The team shares their motive with people and visit the area. During the visit they make contact with the key people or organizations to collect the area information in detail. Before leaving the area the team fixes a date, time and venue through discussion to have a sharing meeting with community people as next step.

SELECTION OF COMMUNITY:
The team will split the area on household basis for identification of a community. The household size of a community can be around 70-100 but within manageable limit.

FACILITATION FOR COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION:
According to previous sharing the facilitation team will have an entry in the area and initiate discussion with available people focusing sanitation aspect. After a certain time facilitator will invite the people to transect the area together. During transect facilitator will try to prefer alternative ways instead of preferring the main road of the area to observe keenly the sanitation status and will discuss the merits and demerits of poor sanitation to guess the peoples’ perception. At this stage, lack of safe sanitation appears as a critical issue to overcome.

COMMUNITY SITUATION ANALYSIS:
After completing the transect walk the facilitation team will sit in a common place for discussion. During discussion facilitator will explain the merits of map drawing of community sanitation situation as explored earlier. Location of households, population segregated with age, sex, child, and disable are reflected in the map. Besides, sanitation status, resources, communication and relevant information are also made available in the map.

As the next step the facilitator initiate discussion on total households sketched in the map to identify the rich, middle class, poor and hard core poor. Supportive facilitation is needed to identify the different classes of people so that the illiterate people can understand how many households are there in each category.

After articulation of existing problems facilitator will check whether the disease prevalence is expressed as a problem or not. If not, facilitator will initiate discussion to find out the trends of disease prevalence especially water and excreta related diseases which could be very helpful to ignite the participants to realize the importance of safe sanitation. An analysis on family expenditure for treatment purposes is also effective to identify that lack of safe sanitation is one of the prime reasons for poverty acceleration.

After having analyses, facilitator will encourage the people to observe the fact of sanitation status together in the community. While visiting the place of open defecation facilitator will ask community people how they feel to observe this sanitation condition. Facilitator will explain the severe effect of environmental pollution through human excreta. In relation with this, facilitator will demonstrate calculation of feces defecated in open space by the community people in daily, weekly and monthly basis. Besides, mobility of feces and analyses of fecal oral transmission is effective to make people realize the adverse affect of open defecation. In fact, during this facilitation in front of outsiders the community people feel embarrassed for open defecation. Dignity and privacy also appear as a vital issue to change this existing situation immediately which helps to initiate collective action.

Before leaving, the facilitator will have an agreement with community people to fix a date and venue for wider sharing among the whole community people to generate a whole community based mobilization and actions.

COLLECTIVE INITIATIVES:
As per previous planning facilitator will facilitate to present community sanitation scenario in front of the whole community by the community people who took part in drawing the map. After presentation, the facilitator will have an agreement whether all of the information reflects the facts lying with the community or not. If not, then facilitator will incorporate all of the inputs from large forum and will reach a conclusion. As a next step facilitator initiate discussion how to overcome the situation? Whether the existing situation will be continuing? Whether it is possible to overcome the worst situation individually? In fact, during this sharing the urge of collective action emerges. While the idea is accepted, they agree to form a committee towards developing an action plan.

After forming committee an orientation is organized to discuss about committee roles and responsibilities. Besides, environmental sanitation, low cost- affordable WatSan technologies, stakeholder identification, utilization of local resources, engagement with local government Institutions (LGI) and community action plan development aspects are considered for orientation. When the orientation is completed the committee develops an action plan sharing with other members.

IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN AND CONSCIENTIZATION PROCESS:
According to plan, the committee (Community Based Organization-CBO) organizes regular sharing. At the initial stage, the facilitator facilitates how to conduct meeting, write resolution, how to implement action plan etc. Apart from this, a common place is identified to disseminate sanitation awareness among the male, female, children and adolescent. The prime areas of the discussion are hygiene promotion, its necessity, participants of hygiene promotion, process of hygiene promotion, roles of community people in hygiene promotion etc. Besides, facilitator explains community roles and responsibilities for hardware implementation.

Facilitator encourages CBOs to evaluate whether the planned safe water access promotion, sanitation and hygiene behaviour practice promotion activities are accomplished significantly. To enhance the capacity of the CBO an intensive and continuous support for capacity building is extended in terms of skill based training and hands on orientation to achieve the following aspects:
• Community people can raise their voice to establish their social rights and make decisions;
• Local resources are identified and utilized properly at optimum level Govt. allocation for sanitation and water supply;
• Local government institutions are accountable to community towards a confident relation and effective alliance building for sanitation success;

This stage is very important for the facilitation team to facilitate the whole process to achieve the total sanitation in a community.

OBSERVING BEHAVIOURAL CHANGES:
A positive change in behavior is essential to reduce diarrhoeal diseases that are related to hygiene promotion. To achieve total sanitation assessment of behavioral changes is a salient feature of the approach. Besides, some mechanism/tools are developed so that the community people can understand and compare very clearly about their previous and current situation. At the beginning the facilitator assists the community people but ULTIMATE responsibility lies with the community. After a certain period, when the community people realize that the expected behavioral changes are achieved, people are getting aware critically then they express their achievement collectively through hanging a signboard indicating - “All of the people are using hygienic latrine in this community” in a common place which can draw the attention of visitors. Basically this initiative increases community peoples’ dignity when recognition comes from the visitors.

HAND OVER RESPONSIBILITIES TO COMMUNITY AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT INSTITUTION:
The prime roles of the facilitator are to facilitate the process to achieve the total sanitation with the endeavour of community people and concerned Union Parishad (the local government institution) and Municipal authorities in Sub-Urban areas. This is the way forward towards sustainability. After achieving the total sanitation in a community the roles and responsibilities of facilitator get changed. The facilitator initiates the process for handing over the responsibilities to community in a formal manner so that they can carry out the essence of total sanitation in the long run and extend their support to adjoining communities to achieve total sanitation towards improving the quality of livelihood status. Thus Ward, Union/Municipality and Upazila-wise coverage is ensured.

SCALING UP OF THE APPROACH:
The approach has been on the move and being put into practice by many of the sector agencies in the country, region and beyond. To this effect VERC has been extending training support to organizations like – CARE Bangladesh, Plan Bangladesh, HEED Bangladesh, DANIDA and World Vision. In addition 20 of WaterAid Bangladesh partner organizations have been trained on the approach. Many of the local NGOs have also been trained to undertake participatory WatSan program in their working areas. Cambodia is yet another country where VERC experts imparted training to install the approach.

Full scale training package of the approach includes 42 days in-house sessions and field orientation in seven slots phase by phase essentially blended with values of participatory approach. Course include the following –

Exposure visit was another important intervention in scaling up of the approach. In this regard, World Bank Offices in Dhaka and Delhi organized an exposure visit and sharing workshop for scaling up of the approach in India. Indian Government and NGO representatives had a direct observation in the field which helped them to adapt strategies in improving the sanitation situation in more dynamic manner compared to previous conventional manner. Nepal has learned the approach through exposure visit with WaterAid Nepal support and doing well in promoting the WatSan status of their context.

LESSONS LEARNT:
The main driving forces behind the paradigm shift in mindset and behavior are –
• A key feature is empowering communities to help themselves, and a shift from technocratic and financial patronage to participatory approaches. This requires a change in approach from training and management to an emphasis on empowering communities and strengthening local institutions.
• One of the most noteworthy features is the absence of household-level subsidy in respect of latrine installation. In case of poor and hardcore poor households, government subsidy is ensured through linkage building between the community institutions and the Union Parishad/Municipal authorities. Unlike earlier approaches, the process of behavior change is included in the approach without external financial support to households.
• As per government policy, VERC offers subsidy on community water technology installations with bindings of technology-wise participation cost payable by the user households. This is very much helpful in promoting sense of ownership in the community which is supportive to operation and management of the installation in a sustainable manner.
• By creating awareness within communities, a change in mindset is achieved. The shift from open defecation to fixed spot defecation is irreversible as, in addition to health benefits, it provides privacy and safety and people are likely to find it difficult to regress to traditional practices.
• The old mindset of promoting a single model approach for technology had not been advocated. Rather, a variety of innovative technology options were available on the ground. Households are at different levels of the sanitation ladder, and many had made a gradual shift from a low-cost model to a more durable and costlier one.
• The effect of peer pressure and participatory monitoring systems has ensured sustainability. Innovative systems are being used to police open defecation, for instance through watchmen and children’s groups. The refusal of families to allow their daughters to marry into households without sanitation systems is an effective incentive for encouraging total sanitation practices.
• The variety of sanitation equipment on sale in the roadside shops indicates that there is a significant demand in the area. The introduction of cheaper materials and of multiple technology options has increased the demand, as a growing number of users are able to enter the market. It needed no special efforts to create the supply chain. Private producers of pit latrines and related equipment have largely met the growing demand.

CHALLENGES AHEAD:
The approach needs to address the issues for effective replication and sustainability and they can be summed up as –
• Back up support to further try out the approach in broader area contexts in the country and region as well
• Institutional linkage between line actors as well as other stake holders to institutionalize the time consuming hygiene behavior change communication activities
• Integration of all stake holders including the donor community to carry forward the innovative approach to linkup with other development interventions
• Effective replication of the approach in the country is still dependent on advocacy at the policy level which is yet a big challenge as of its leadership and incorporating it into national policy in a continuous manner.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT INVOLVEMENT FOR LONG TERM SUSTAINABILITY:
A key aspect to ensure long-term sustainability of the approach after the withdrawal of the facilitating agency is the involvement of the local government bodies. Advocacy workshops being held at different levels This is being initiated by holding advocacy workshop done through The Union/Municipal Sanitation Taskforce Committee ensures the integration of all the stakeholders working within the union in the process so that the community level institutions receive help, support and encouragement from the own local government. Motivation of the Union Parishad/Municipal Chairman leads to the active promotion of the approach in collaboration with the community level CBOs In addition, the Union/Municipal Sanitation Taskforce takes an active part in promoting the approach in the government Upazila Sanitation Taskforce Committee meetings. Demand is being generated at the community level and support being given by the upper level authorities.

Department of Public Health Engineering in collaboration with Local Govt. Administration is playing the key role bringing communities and Sanitation Taskforces into a common platform by allocating resources, extending technical support. DPHE Engineers at Upazila and District

The approach is now a strong alliance of frontline WatSan CBOs with Union Parishad and Municipalities supported by National Sanitation Taskforce in the country towards achieving the national goal of total coverage by 2010.

CONCLUSION:
There is a real sense of ownership and responsibility for the changes made in the community. Considering the issue of withdrawal, VERC is trying to install the required capacity in communities through linkage building with different stakeholders across government departments and other agencies. Communities’ are also taking part as promoters for other communities and so spread the approach. This is important for the widening of the approach across communities as it is a more sustainable method of promoting 100% sanitation in the long term and helps when NGO resources are limited. Above all, the elected local government body being considered as the most durable actor in the process.

Despite some challenges, the approach has aroused interest in the country among NGOs, Government department and donor communities. A high powered team of the Indian Government and NGOs paid a visit to the program and considered the approach worth replicating in India and already has achieved significant success in doing that.

Sustainability and Challenges for Jambaria Union
After
Phasing out of WatSan program: a participant observation

Since October 2003, VERC has been implementing Advancing Sustainable Environmental Health (ASEH) project in 8 Upazilas achieving 100% Sanitation coverage with the financial and technical support from WaterAid Bangldesh (WAB).

After achieving 100% sanitation coverage in the unions VERC pulls out the activities from the union and formally hands over all the responsibilities and relevant documents to local Government Body. This process is called phasing out.

On 31 March, 2007 the activities Jambaria Union of Bholahat Upazila was phased out. All the responsibilities and documents were handed over to the local government on 20 May, 2007. Meanwhile Bholahat received award formally in 2005 from the national government as a 100% latrine installation coverage upazila.

Basically the major focus of brief field study is to search sustainability of Watsan activities of VERC in Jambaria union after passing six months of phasing out.

Location of Jambaria union:

Bholahat Upazila is located in Chapainowabgonj district along the Indo- Bangla border lying to the extreme north of the country. Jambaria union is situated at the south-east corner of Bholahat Upazila.

Sanitation perspective:

Peoples practice
Formerly, a large number of people in Bholahat upazila had been defecating in Mango orchards, bamboo bushes, river bank, open field etc. as a traditional practice. People could not go through the mango orchards, bamboo bushes due to foul odour of human excreta. But at present, there is no open defecation visible in 16 villages in Jambaria Union. Most of the households are using latrine. Some household use share latrine but nobody defecates in open field. They use local materials for making latrine such as irrigation plastic pipe, Motka, slab, ring,

tin, bamboo, straw, gunny bag etc. People expressed that they are keeping toilets clean and hygienic. It is observed that each and every latrine is clean, soap or ash is available in latrine, no foul odor in the latrines. Bucket full of water found in two-third of the observed latrines.

Now, people are so aware that they do not defecate in open field. Villagers of Fatapur informed that they have made latrine in Bilbhatia bil near the Fatapur village so that they also can defecate in the bil during working hours.

No open defecation found in surrounding the village, along the road side, in open field. Children are now habituated to latrine use. In Kashiabaria village, housewife Irunnesa (18) expressed, “I would not send my 4 years old child to defecate in open field, if I push”.

Surroundings of public toilet found clean, no open defecation was observed, water was available in the public toilet. It was observed that toilet for women (which are the part of public toilet) are comparatively less used.

Technology of Latrine:
Most of the people are using toilet with low cost technology. Recently many latrines found damaged because of heavy rainfall of the season. Many latrines have no roof, no fences, some latrines are covered with polythene. People faced in problems in this perspective. But no open defecation found in the yard, under the tree, roadside, surrounding the village. People said they used others latrine which is closer to the household and they expressed they would never defecate openly. This situation is just for temporary, not fixed. Most of the people said that they would repair their latrine within few days or after the rainy season.

It should be mentioned here that people are going to better options from low cost latrines. A private production center of latrine materials was observed in Jambaria union. People were buying ring slab from the center on regular basis. It was also observed that some people have stored ring slab within the compounds for establishing latrine after the rainy season.

Share latrine:
There are 26% share latrines existing in Jambaria union till now but economic crisis is a major reason behind the gap. Shortage of space is another major reason of share latrines. If they desire to increase their place, they would not be able due to lack of sufficient space. In that sense, share latrine will not be omitted totally. Some joint family use share latrines. In this respect, the Area Coordinator, VERC Bholahat, informed that Union Parishad distributed 56 sets of latrine materials in the last 6 months from ADP allocation. But Latrines could not be established due to rainy season. Union parishad would distribute 62 more latrine material sets within few days. Bholahat Area Coordinator expressed that if these materials will be properly distributed, the number of share latrine will be decreased and reducing it down to 10%.
Status of Water Points
It is observed that most of the water points are functional, platforms are good. But there are few cases of water stagnancy, improper drainage systems have been observed nearby water points. All the tube wells are free from Arsenic. Last arsenic test was held in March, 2007.

Caretaker of water point:
There are two caretakers to oversee each of the water points. All of them are trained. They find out functional, non- functional, partially- functional tube wells. They are making people aware about hand washing, washing of tube well handle before drawing water, covering water, keeping water safe etc. In many cases they can not collect monthly two or three taka on regular basis to repair tube wells. It creates problem in many communities.

When the tube wells brake down the handle or other problems created, they can repair on their own. In this perspective, Kulsum Begum, Caretaker of Borojambaria village said that when the tube wells brake down or face problem, she herself can repair it. In this process, poor/marginalized women can have access to mainstream culture through water point. It is also a cultural assimilation process. This case shows that practical process of social sustainability through people initiated sanitation programme.

Community views on tube well :
But it is a matter of re-thinking that most of the people are not happy with the use of
Tara-II tube wells. They expressed that this is very hard and heavy for handling; children can not operate this type of heavy handle. People desire to get Deep set tube well. Though we know, in geo-physical condition, drinking water is not available in that area in dry season. So, Tara-II is appropriate technology for availability of water in that area.

Hygiene practice by the community:

People’s hygiene behavior seems to be more satisfactory. They use soap or ash after toilet. Even women informed that they wash their hand after anal cleaning of their children. Every body including children goes to latrine with sandal.

People are keeping food, water on high place with cover. Women informed that they use safe water in cooking and other house work. But most of the people do not wash their hand with soap before eating. Women said that they generally use soap after using cow-dung and scrubbing black cooking pot.

Cleaning system of Toilet:
People said, they wash their latrine in a week. They use Jet, Harpic, wheel powder, local technology etc. as their ability to clean their latrine. Some people wash their toilet by melting liquefied hard soap in a pot. Some people brush their toilet by making brush with crashing one side of the stem of a plant of date palm. This is an indigenous technology how can we learn from this and apply to sanitation sector.
Condition of diseases
People informed that Cholera, Diarrhea, dysentery have decreased due to proper hygiene practice. People said, they have been affected in frequent times by Cholera, dysentery at Ashiin-Kartik in two years ago.

Health session practice:
It is observed that health session is continuing and monitoring chart has been filled up as regular basis. Women seem to be curious for health session till now. They expressed their opinion that if VERC go away, they would continue the health session. Student informed that in every Thursday at the end of the session, teachers conduct health class in school for half an hour or an hour. This information has been informed from school teacher and student. Moreover, every day teachers disseminate the health message in school assembly.

Role of Local government:

It was observed that the union parishad of Jambaria is very active and they are continuing all the WatSan related activities. In six month ago, VERC and union parishad of Jambaria union worked together for ensuring water and sanitation.
Though VERC pulled out their programme from Jambaria union in six month ago, union parishad is working so actively. Ward sanitation taskforce committee, Union sanitation taskforce committee meeting are going on regularly. Inventory board observed (display board) absolutely updated which information has been collected from ward member, gram police. All the documents such as water supply register, sanitation register, resolution book, participant list have been stored carefully. Union parishad chairman informed that 70,821 taka exists in joint account which would be spent to establish new water point and also for repairing. This is a dynamic process to sustain work and it is also a way to make accountable the union parishad to the people.

Especially it should highlight an eminent initiative taken by union parishad. Upazila coordination meeting helds in upazila office with the presence of all head of the governmental office, heads of the educational institute, union parishad chairman etc. Area Coordinator of VERC, Vholahat upazila discussed as an agenda in this meeting that VERC would phase out the WatSan programme from Jambaria union in March, 2007. According to project design, VERC recruits 6 Community Volunteer in every union. They would get honorarium till six months (from April, 2007 to September, 2007) after phasing out, as project design. But they have been working intensively with the community people for achieving 100%

sanitation coverage and there is a necessity of Community Volunteer for long term sustainability of WatSan programme. He proposed, could we take any initiative in this perspective? Upazila Engineer said that there is a provision exists in local government structure that in every year ADP (Annual Development Programme) allocates 20% taka for sanitation purpose. The instruction is that 75% taka from 20% allocation has to spend for distributing latrine materials and 25% taka has to spend for people’s awareness related to sanitation (software). Upazila Engineer proposed that the allocation of software can be spent for honorarium of Community Volunteer. The entire participant appreciate to the proposal and decision was taken that three Community Volunteer will be paid from April, 2007 to March, 2008.

Recently a decision was taken through union sanitation taskforce that another three Community Volunteers will be paid from October, 2007 to September, 2008. It is a great achievement.

Not only this, another innovative action has taken by union parishad. Recently a team formed in Jambaria union. The members of the team are union parishad Chairman, union sanitation taskforce committee members, gram police, village leaders etc. Union Parishad Chairman leads the team. This team will visit the villages to take initiative to remove wastes surrounding the villages, conduct miking in street and in mosque not to defecate in open field and road side. At the end of October, this team will survey on water point to identify the problems and will determine which tube wells have to repair. Upazila Nirbahi Officer will give administrative cooperation; Officer in Charge (police) will serve by giving pick up to the team. Jambaria Union Parishad Chairman expressed that this initiative is a part of WatSan activities.

Concern about sustainability of the programme:

Immediate after the phasing out in Jambaria union, a major question arises that VERC done sanitation, water and hygiene practice promotion activities- would these activities sustain! In this perspective at the end of September, VERC conducted a brief field study to observe the sustainability of the work/ programme activities; community norms, values, hygiene behavior; overall health practices etc. related to the WatSan. If we analyze in a few words the whole perspective of field, we can see the positive impact mostly over the community. Such as, women can participate in WatSan Action Committee till now, WatSan Action Committee meeting continues, open defecation removed, people gets pure drinking water and maintaining water point properly, people are aware about hygiene practice, local government plays an active role, these phenomena are the contemporary indicators of long term sustainability of the programme. However, we can claim, a significant development has been achieved in WatSan sector in Jambaria union through the intensive work of VERC. Though there are 26% share latrine is existing in the community. In that sense, VERC assumed that it is necessary to do more work in WatSan sector to impede using share latrine, to ensure the adequate involvement of all economic class of women in community based organizations (CBO).

Learnings:
• Where the Union Parishad specially the Chairman becomes active, the WatSan activities can run smoothly. On the other hand, it is a vital way to strengthen local government through WatSan activities and their acceptance and accountability can be proved to the people.
• The software allocation (from 20% ADP allocation) is being used for paying salary to the Community Volunteers. It may be considered as a special advocacy activity which can be introduced across the country.