How a transect walk through a small FCT community exposed the consequences of open defecation—and triggered a transformation that went far beyond toilets.

By Monday Osasah

Sometimes, the journey to transformation begins with an uncomfortable truth.

For the people of Kuyizhi, a community in Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, that truth came when they were confronted with a disturbing connection between where they defecated and where they got the water they drank.

They were, in effect, contaminating their own water sources with their own waste.

It was not a pleasant discovery. But it was the discovery that helped change the community.

In 2012, when the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy & Development (Centre LSD) entered Kuyizhi with a Community-Led Total Sanitation intervention, toilets were virtually non-existent. Only one household reportedly had a toilet. For most residents, the surrounding bushes and open spaces served as toilets.

The intervention was implemented with funding support from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) under the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI). The support enabled Centre LSD to work with communities in the Federal Capital Territory to confront open defecation not simply as an infrastructure deficit, but as a behavioural, public health and community development challenge.

Open defecation was not viewed as extraordinary. It was simply how life had been organised.

But human waste does not disappear simply because it is deposited away from the house.

When the rains came, water moved through the bushes and open spaces where people defecated. It carried contaminants downhill and towards streams from which residents drew water. Poor handwashing practices created another pathway for faecal contamination.

The consequences were potentially devastating for public health.

Yet, as is often the case with deeply rooted practices, the greatest challenge was not simply the absence of infrastructure. It was getting people to recognise that what had become normal was dangerous.

That was where the Kuyizhi story began.

Before Kuyizhi

Centre LSD's intervention in Kuyizhi did not emerge in isolation.

The Centre had undertaken a survey across parts of the Federal Capital Territory to identify communities where open defecation and poor sanitation practices were prevalent. Several communities were identified.

In 2011, Centre LSD commenced interventions in Durumi 3 and Ruwan Fulani communities in the Abuja Municipal Area Council.

The following year, attention shifted to Kuyizhi in Kuje Area Council—one of the communities identified with significant open-defecation challenges but where a similar intervention had not yet taken place.

With support from CIDA through the CFLI, Centre LSD deployed the Community-Led Total Sanitation approach, which placed community participation, behavioural change and local ownership at the centre of the intervention.

The approach was deliberately different from the traditional development model in which an organisation enters a community, identifies a problem and begins distributing solutions.

Centre LSD did not arrive in Kuyizhi with truckloads of toilets.

It arrived with questions.

And perhaps more importantly, it came with a process designed to enable the people to see their own situation, analyse it and decide what they wanted to do about it.

First, You Must Enter a Community

Development practitioners sometimes underestimate community entry.

Projects are designed in offices. Budgets are approved. Logframes are developed. Indicators are agreed. Then implementers arrive in communities with timelines and expectations.

But communities have histories. They have leadership structures. They have relationships, suspicions, conflicts, traditions and gatekeepers.

You cannot sustainably transform a community you have not taken time to understand.

Centre LSD therefore began with community entry and rapport building.

Community gatekeepers and leaders were engaged. The intervention was explained. Relationships were established. Four community facilitators—two men and two women—were identified to help mobilise residents and provide a bridge between the project and the community.

This was important.

If Kuyizhi was going to change, the people had to own that change.

Then came the walk.

A Walk That Changed the Conversation

It was called a transect walk.

The term may sound technical, but the exercise itself was remarkably simple.

Centre LSD facilitators, community gatekeepers and residents walked through Kuyizhi together.

They moved through residential areas and footpaths. They visited bushes and places where residents routinely defecated. They observed waste-disposal areas, drainage routes and water sources.

The community was effectively being invited to look at itself.

Gatekeepers pointed out places where people defecated. Participants examined the environment. They discussed what happened when the rains came and water flowed through areas containing human waste.

Then they followed the logic of the water.

Where did it go?

Into the surrounding environment.

And in some cases, towards streams from which people collected water.

Suddenly, the conversation about sanitation was no longer theoretical.

Nobody needed a PowerPoint presentation to explain what they were seeing.

Nobody needed an expert to tell them that there was a problem.

The evidence was beneath their feet.

The transect walk became a mirror through which Kuyizhi could see the consequences of practices that had become normal.

And what the community saw was troubling.

The Trigger

The observations from the transect walk fed into the Community-Led Total Sanitation triggering session.

Participatory mapping and other CLTS tools enabled residents to identify their homes, open-defecation sites, water sources and contamination pathways.

Then came the uncomfortable connection.

If people defecated in the open, and rainfall carried contaminants from those areas into streams and the wider environment, what happened when residents drank water from those sources?

The answer was difficult to avoid.

They could effectively be consuming water contaminated by their own faeces.

That was the trigger.

Sometimes, people change because a law compels them. Sometimes, because money incentivises them. Sometimes, because an authority figure instructs them.

But there are moments when change happens because people suddenly see a familiar reality differently.

For Kuyizhi, this was one of those moments.

The issue was no longer about Centre LSD asking the community to stop open defecation.

It had become a question the community had to answer for itself:

How could we continue living like this?

From “Who Will Help Us?” to “What Can We Do?”

That question marked an important shift.

In many development settings, communities have become accustomed to outsiders arriving with solutions. If toilets are needed, somebody should build them. If water is needed, somebody should provide a borehole. If a clinic is required, government or a donor should construct it.

But Community-Led Total Sanitation works from a different premise.

The community must become the principal actor in changing its sanitation behaviour.

Kuyizhi residents developed their own Community Action Plan.

Households began taking responsibility.

Toilets were constructed.

Handwashing facilities emerged.

Sanitation became a subject of community mobilisation.

Eventually, all 34 households in Kuyizhi had toilets constructed and maintained by the households themselves, with handwashing facilities.

Think about that transformation.

At the beginning of the intervention, only one household reportedly had a toilet.

By the time the community had mobilised around the challenge, household toilet ownership had become the norm.

Kuyizhi eventually attained Open Defecation Free status.

But if the story ended there, we would miss its most important lesson.

When Cleanliness Became Everybody's Business

Changing individual behaviour is difficult.

Sustaining collective behaviour can be even more difficult.

Kuyizhi therefore needed structures that would survive beyond the presence of Centre LSD.

Sanitation and Waste Management structures were established to support the Community Action Plan, mobilise households and reinforce hygiene practices.

Community facilitators, leaders and committee members received training covering hygiene and sanitation, citizens' rights, leadership, advocacy, campaigning, community mobilisation and household income management.

The intention was clear: the intervention should not collapse when the project ended.

One of the practices that emerged was a bi-weekly community sanitation exercise.

Residents regularly came out to clean their environment. What started as a response to a sanitation crisis gradually became part of the community's collective life.

This is an important distinction in development.

A project can pay people to participate in an activity.

But when people continue an activity because they believe it belongs to them, something deeper has happened.

Sanitation was becoming a community responsibility.

Four Angwas and a Little Competition

There was another interesting development.

The community was organised into four Angwas, or clusters, following training on hygiene, leadership and household income management.

Soon, a form of healthy rivalry developed.

During sanitation exercises, the different Angwas competed over which part of the community would be cleaner.

Competition, when properly channelled, can be a powerful instrument of social change.

Nobody wanted their Angwa to be identified as the dirty section of Kuyizhi. Cleanliness began to carry social value.

The same community in which open defecation had once been normal was developing an internal culture in which people could take pride in the cleanliness of their surroundings.

The transformation was no longer being policed from outside.

The community itself was reinforcing it.

But Then Something Unexpected Happened

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the Kuyizhi story is what happened next.

It had little to do directly with toilets.

Centre LSD attended an external meeting involving civil society organisations and shared the story of what was happening in Kuyizhi.

The transformation attracted the attention of the Nigerian Red Cross.

Centre LSD subsequently facilitated engagement between the organisation and the community.

Out of that engagement came an opportunity.

If Kuyizhi could provide a building, support would be mobilised towards establishing a community clinic.

It was another test of community ownership.

Would residents wait for somebody to construct the building for them?

They did not.

The community mobilised.

Residents constructed a two-bedroom facility.

A community that had demonstrated that it could organise itself around sanitation was now applying the same collective spirit to healthcare.

The initiative eventually attracted government involvement. In 2013, Kuje Area Council took over the facility and posted a nurse to the clinic.

Consider the chain of events.

A sanitation intervention triggered behavioural change.

Behavioural change strengthened collective action.

Collective action improved community organisation.

The story of that organisation attracted an external partner.

The community's willingness to mobilise created a health facility.

What began with human waste in the bushes had opened another pathway towards community development.

That is how development should multiply.

The Invisible Result

Development organisations understandably like numbers.

How many people were trained?

How many toilets were constructed?

How many meetings were held?

How many households were reached?

These indicators matter.

In Kuyizhi, the numbers tell an important story: 34 households with toilets and handwashing facilities, four Angwas, bi-weekly sanitation exercises, ODF status and a community health facility.

But some of the most important results cannot easily be captured in a spreadsheet.

How do you quantify a community discovering that it can solve its own problems?

How do you measure the moment when people move from waiting for outsiders to taking collective responsibility?

What indicator adequately captures increased social cohesion?

These were among the invisible results of Kuyizhi.

The sanitation intervention became an organising platform.

Residents had to discuss a shared problem.

They had to agree on what to do.

Households had to take responsibility.

Community structures had to mobilise people.

The Angwas had to organise themselves.

Residents later had to mobilise around the clinic.

Through these processes, something beyond sanitation was being built.

Community agency.

Development Is Not What You Give People

There is a persistent temptation in development work to equate impact with what organisations provide.

We count boreholes.

We count classrooms.

We count toilets.

We count grants.

We count beneficiaries.

But Kuyizhi reminds us that one of the greatest contributions a development intervention can make is to help people recognise and exercise their own power.

With the catalytic support provided by CIDA through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, Centre LSD was able to facilitate a process that went beyond delivering physical sanitation infrastructure. It supported community entry, participatory analysis, the transect walk, triggering, capacity strengthening, community organisation and advocacy.

The residents did the rest.

That distinction matters.

Had the project simply constructed 34 toilets and left, there would have been 34 toilets.

But would there have been community ownership?

Would there have been the bi-weekly sanitation exercise?

Would the Angwas have sustained their healthy competition?

Would residents have mobilised themselves to construct a building for a clinic?

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.

What we know is that Kuyizhi was not treated merely as a collection of beneficiaries.

Its people became actors in their own development.

The Sustainability Question

Every development organisation eventually confronts one uncomfortable question:

What happens when the project ends?

Funding cycles end.

Donors move to new priorities.

Project officers leave.

Vehicles stop visiting communities.

Allowances disappear.

Reports are submitted.

The banners come down.

Then reality begins.

The true test of an intervention is not only what happens while project staff are present. It is what the community continues to do after they leave.

This is what makes the Kuyizhi experience particularly instructive.

The intervention was implemented in 2012, yet practices and community structures catalysed by the project continued beyond its formal lifespan.

The sanitation exercise endured.

The Angwa structure remained relevant to community mobilisation.

Households maintained responsibility for their sanitation facilities.

The clinic became part of the community's social infrastructure.

Sustainability, therefore, was not merely written into the project proposal.

It was embedded in community ownership.

The Journey from Beneficiaries to Citizens

There is also a broader lesson here about citizenship.

A beneficiary waits to receive.

A citizen participates.

A beneficiary asks what a project will provide.

An empowered citizen also asks what he or she can contribute.

This does not absolve government of its responsibilities. Governments remain responsible for public health, water, sanitation, healthcare and other essential services. Communities should not be abandoned to provide everything for themselves.

But citizenship is strongest when people can demand accountable government while simultaneously exercising agency within their communities.

This was why the Kuyizhi intervention included training on citizens' rights, advocacy and campaigning.

Community mobilisation and government responsibility are not opposites.

They should reinforce each other.

The clinic provides a good example.

The community mobilised to provide the building. But government eventually stepped in through the Kuje Area Council, took over the facility and posted a health worker.

That is the kind of relationship development should encourage: active communities engaging responsive institutions.

A Walk Worth Remembering

Looking back, it is remarkable how much of the Kuyizhi story can be traced to that simple walk through the community.

Centre LSD facilitators and community gatekeepers walked through the places residents knew very well.

The bushes were not new.

The streams were not new.

The pathways were not new.

Open defecation was not new.

What changed was the connection between them.

People began to see that an action in one part of the community could have consequences somewhere else.

The bush where someone defecated was connected to the stream where another person collected water.

The cleanliness of one household was connected to the health of another.

Individual behaviour had collective consequences.

Once that connection became visible, the possibility of collective action emerged.

The Kuyizhi Lesson

More than a decade after the intervention began, the Kuyizhi story offers a lesson that goes beyond sanitation.

Africa's development challenge will not be solved solely by governments, donors, civil society organisations or communities acting independently.

Transformation requires institutions that work and citizens who act.

It requires communities capable of identifying their problems, organising around solutions and holding institutions accountable.

It requires development organisations willing to resist the temptation to become permanent providers and instead strengthen people's capacity to become agents of their own transformation.

And it requires government institutions willing to respond when organised citizens demonstrate initiative.

Kuyizhi started with an unpleasant reality: a community practising open defecation and exposing itself to contamination.

But that is not where the story ended.

The community built toilets.

It adopted handwashing practices.

It institutionalised sanitation exercises.

It organised itself into Angwas.

It attained Open Defecation Free status.

It strengthened community cohesion.

And when an opportunity arose to establish a clinic, residents built the structure required to make it possible.

The CIDA-supported intervention through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives provided the catalytic opportunity; Centre LSD facilitated the process; but the people of Kuyizhi owned the transformation.

That combination is important.

Development assistance is at its most transformative when external resources do not create permanent dependence but instead unlock the capacities already present within communities.

The most important thing Kuyizhi built, therefore, may not have been the toilets or even the clinic.

It built confidence in collective action.

That is why the story remains relevant.

Development is most sustainable when people can look at a challenge and stop asking only, “Who will come and solve this for us?”

The more transformative question is:

“What can we do together—and what must we demand from those entrusted with public responsibility?”

For Kuyizhi, the journey towards answering that question began with a walk through the community, an uncomfortable discovery, and a decision that things could no longer remain the same.

Sometimes, that is how transformation begins.

Osasah wrote from #3B, Niger Avenue, Apo, Abuja