A UNICEF Success Story from Vietnam

In Vietnam, a UNICEF-Supported Sanitation Program Creates Healthier Communities

Vinh Thanh village is nestled in the rice-producing Mekong Delta region of southern Vietnam. On a recent, sunny Sunday morning, residents came together to attend a special and important activity organized by local health workers.

To start, a health worker named Mr. Binh asked residents to draw a map of their village on the ground. A volunteer used bits of thread to represent the main road, blue lint for the river, and leaves for the paddy fields.

The affable Mr. Binh invited other villagers to use paper and sandstones to define local landmarks—including the school and Buddhist temple.

Then he revealed the purpose of the map-making. Mr. Binh asked those in attendance to mark on the map where they usually went to the bathroom. Some peoples' faces wore uneasy smiles, but giggles soon erupted from the audience. "Come on! Each one of you take yellow powder and show me where this happens," said Mr. Binh.

Volunteers marked defecation sites around the village. They were then asked to visit these spots, where they learned about the high risk of contamination when human waste is mixed into food and water supplies.

Only two in every five families in the village of Vinh Thanh have toilets. Despite substantial achievements in providing safe water, progress in sanitation and hygiene across Vietnam is still lagging, especially in rural areas, where 70 percent of Vietnam's 88 million inhabitants live.

The exercise in Vinh Thanh village helped the community understand the harmful consequences of open defecation. Residents also learned how to gauge the health costs stemming from diseases related to unhygienic practices.

"Looking at all the risks we take when we defecate in the fields, was a real shock for me," said Vo Van Ngan, a rice farmer. "It made me understand all this was about making sure my children are growing up healthy." In fact, he spent about $600 to build toilets for his family. "My wife is a street food vendor, [and] we do not make much money," he said. "Of course I realized it was expensive to build latrines, but we know it is worth it."

The workshop in Vinh Thanh village was part of a new 'Community-Led Total Sanitation' (CLTS) project being piloted by UNICEF and its partners in three provinces of Vietnam. It has already proven successful in other countries.

Now in its second year, 'Community-Led Total Sanitation' has helped villages throughout the country rethink their sanitation situation and practices. Communities are then empowered to take collective action to become 'open-defecation-free.'

The results so far are impressive. Since 2009, 33 villages across five provinces in Vietnam have been declared 'open-defecation-free'.