Pacific Regional Council for Early Childhood Development

Young children’s voices contribute to community building in Solomon Islands

Communities in Solomon Islands are building much-needed sanitation facilities in response to calls from their children. As a result, they are changing the health outcomes of their families for the better.

As of 2009, national sanitation coverage for Solomon Islands rose to 33%, supported greatly by the Solomon Islands Government’s subsidisation of household toilet construction. However in 2015 a national survey found the subsidised approach to have failed since coverage fell to 13% with evidence of many subsidised household toilets abandoned or misused.

With UNICEF support, the non-subsidized Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) approach was introduced under the Rural WASH policy led by Environmental Health Division in the Ministry of Health and Medical Services.

For Jamesford Keboy, lecturer in public health and nutrition at Solomon Islands National University (SINU), it was a memorable experience. Mr Keboy was part of a research team in Child Faeces Management in Solomon Islands who were selected for training in CLTS and is one of the 97 certified CLTS facilitators out of 101 training participants.

“There were two memorable moments during my training that I would like to share. The first happened during day 3 of the 5-day training when Eric Hale, CLTS Master Trainer, showed us a video clip of his own triggering event with a community in Makira province. It showed the children trying to convince their parents to build toilets for them. At the end of the video clip, most parents were convinced to build toilets for their family in response to the plea from their children. I noticed the training room was silent during the presentation of that video clip and I realized that all participants were really taken by this very powerful message”, Mr Keboy said, emotionally recalling his most memorable moment from the CLTS training.

“The second memorable moment happened when I actually conducted the triggering exercise in our assigned village. Despite the challenges we faced at the beginning of the triggering event, we were able to convince the villagers to start building toilets for themselves and to use them to end open defecation practices as they now understand this is important for them and their children. This was something I am proud of as I am giving some children a better life for their future,” Mr Keboy concluded.

Overall, he has come to appreciate the life-changing importance of the CLTS on families and children, giving younger generations the opportunity to live hygienic and healthy lives.

Mr Keboy’s involvement in seeing young children play a role in convincing their parents to invest in quality sanitation facilities is an example of many milestones that UNICEF together with partners was able to advance towards in Solomon Islands.