Breaking the silence around shit through Community Led Total Sanitation( CLTS) in Sierra Leone : paper prepared for the West Africa Regional Sanitation and Hygiene Symposium, 3-5 Nov 2009, Accra, Ghana.

The Community-led Total Sanitation( CLTS) approach was adopted by the Government of Sierra Leone in 2008, and since then, the methodology has spread to nine out of thirteen Districts in the Country. A total of 169 villages have been declared Open Defecation free(ODF)so far. But openly discussing shit is viewed as indecent and forbidden in many communities in Sierra Leone This paper explores CLTS practitioners’ experiences, and describes how the Government, NGOs and communities have been able to break the silence over shit through social mobilization. It describes challenges in sustaining ODF status, Local Government, and National Task Force roles in harmonizing, coordinating, and sharing CLTS learning in the Country. The paper brings out the plans for scaling up and adding quality to CLTS in the Country. It also describes how encouraging partnerships, creativity, innovation, learning, sharing, team work, intensive interaction and consultations have ensured better CLTS outcomes. (authors abstract)