Two years ago, Hamidou Samakan, chief of the village of Yarou Plateau in Mali, noticed significant changes in the neighbouring village of Gouna. The village was clean and there were no faeces to be seen. People were building affordable latrines, sweeping common areas, and chlorinating their drinking water.

Back in Hamidou’s village, people were still defecating in the open. Few households had latrines, and diarrhoea and under-nutrition were common.

Gouna was participating in a community-led total sanitation activity, aimed at stopping open defecation. The WASHplus project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and led by FHI 360 and in partnership with CARE and Winrock International, is working with communities in Mali to improve water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and reduce diarrhoel diseases and under-nutrition.

It turned out that the community-led total sanitation approach, designed to trigger feelings of shame and disgust, was working beyond the village of Gouna.

“Having seen what was happening in our neighbour’s community, we decided to improve the sanitation condition in our village,” says Hamidou.

In nearly a year, Yarou Plateau has built more than 60 latrines and rehabilitated ones that had never been used.