Dig Deep Africa Trains The Maa Trust’s Team in Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS)

Last week, Dig Deep Africa Programs Manager, Nicholas Makotsi and Hygiene and Sanitation Project Officer, Nelly Chepkorir led a training workshop for The Maa Trust’s Health and Water department, Ministry of Health Talek Public Health Officer, and Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) in Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). CLTS is a community initiative aimed at mobilising communities to completely eliminate open defecation (OD). Communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation (OD) and take their own action to become open defecation free (ODF).

Dig Deep Africa works with rural communities in Kenya to access water and sanitation. Working together they implement training and appropriate technologies to bring about sustainable improvements in health and education. They aspire to enable people to break the cycle of poverty and transform their own lives.

The three-day training took place at The Maa Trust’s headquarters. The team had an opportunity to put their newly gained skills to use by triggering Ilbaan community, educating them about the importance of constructing toilets.

“We are very grateful for Dig Deep for supporting us and facilitating the training. We have managed to trigger 35 community members in Ilbaan about sanitation, especially the construction of toilets. We really hope that Ilbaan will be among our first villages to be Open Defecation Free (ODF). We really thank Dig Deep for training the staff, CHVs, and the community.” Delphin Mukira, Health, and Water Manager.

The objectives of this training were:

• Empower the Maa Trust staff and volunteers on the skills to implement CLTS as a means to trigger behaviour change to end open defecation;

• Equip the Maa Trust staff and volunteers with skills to implement Menstrual Hygiene Management training in order to support improved hygiene and sanitation including proper maintenance of sanitary facilities in the conservancy and the surrounding communities;

• Discuss strategies of improving personal hygiene such as handwashing, bathing, and proper fomite practices to block the transmission of WASH-related diseases;

• Monitoring and evaluation of CLTS and Real-Time tracking.

The Maa Trust will be working with the Ministry of Health and Public Health Department to implement this project.

“We have been supported by Dig Deep Africa in partnership with The Maa Trust. Dig Deep has been supporting communities through water projects and constructing toilets in schools. Together we will be training the community in CLTS.” David Muiruri, Public Health Officer, Talek Zone.

We are very grateful to Dig Deep Africa for taking the time to empower our team so that we are able to serve the Maasai Mara community better.