{"id":44336,"date":"2024-01-01T05:02:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-01T05:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adra.org\/?p=44336"},"modified":"2026-04-13T20:43:05","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:43:05","slug":"the-fight-against-open-defecation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/the-fight-against-open-defecation","title":{"rendered":"Lucha contra la defecaci\u00f3n al aire libre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Changing long-held beliefs in the community of Mandahazo, in the Commune of Lazarivo, was not easy. Many people believed that latrines were connected to evil spirits that could harm children, making open defecation a common practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cConvencer a la gente de que use una letrina ha sido muy dif\u00edcil. Cuando se les preguntaba por qu\u00e9 defecaban al aire libre, nos dec\u00edan que mantener las heces entre cuatro paredes era tab\u00fa y atra\u00eda al diablo\u201d, explica Lambo Jean Mahafetsy, agente comunitario de salud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the ASOTRY project, diarrhea-related deaths were common. “Before, the village was very dirty. In many spots of the village, there was always a risk of walking on feces. Yet the water we drank was not far from the area where we defecated. That is why so many children died of diarrhea,” says Jean Rabemananjara, in charge of hygiene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To address this, the ASOTRY project, through Action Intercoop\u00e9ration Madagascar (AIM), introduced sanitation and hygiene activities, including Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project teams worked closely with the community to raise awareness about the dangers of open defecation. “We take them to the areas where they defecate, and then we ask them if they would like to eat next to the place, and they start to be disgusted. Then we explain that flies carry microbes from their feces to their food, which is the source of the diseases such as diarrhea that killed their children\u2026 this is how we convinced them,\u201d explained Lambo Jean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over time, attitudes began to change. Families started building latrines and cleaning up open defecation areas, some of which were later turned into cassava fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlgunos proyectos ya hab\u00edan construido algunas letrinas, pero nadie las hab\u00eda utilizado. Fue ASOTRY quien nos convenci\u00f3 de que abandon\u00e1ramos nuestras malas pr\u00e1cticas... Las enfermedades empiezan a disminuir\u201c, dice Lamboharimana Gilbert, otro agente comunitario de salud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building latrines was not always easy. “We encountered some difficulties during the construction of the latrines, because we live on rocky land. Sometimes, we dig only 50cm, and we hit a rock. But it did not discourage us. Finally, our village has today about 40 latrines in total,” says Lamboharimana Gilbert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
After careful review and verification by local authorities and the ASOTRY project, Mandahazo village was officially declared Open Defecation Free (ODF). In total, 40 latrines were built through the efforts of Lambo Jean and other community health volunteers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Convencer a la comunidad de Mandahazo, municipio de Lazarivo, de que abandonara la pr\u00e1ctica de la defecaci\u00f3n al aire libre fue todo un reto. Aqu\u00ed existe la creencia de que las letrinas est\u00e1n vinculadas a esp\u00edritus malignos que matan a los ni\u00f1os.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[785,615,819,829,336],"tags":[869,1026,500],"class_list":["post-44336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","category-blog","category-madagascar","category-voices","category-wash","tag-adra-international-project","tag-asotry-project","tag-usaid"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44336"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47907,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44336\/revisions\/47907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}