Sub step 3: System exposure

The objective of this sub-step is to create awareness on pre-selected options and give stakeholders the opportunity to obtain “real-life” experience, thereby potentially enhancing demand. The following two approaches can be envisaged:

• Constructing and setting up good-practice demonstrations.
• Conducting study tours to existing facilities, allowing interactions of members of the community with existing users.

The goal is to enable the stakeholder group to make an informed choice on their sanitation system components, by building on their own experiences with various sanitation schemes. By giving stakeholders time to use, operate, maintain, discuss and reflect on the options provided in the setting of their own home, they will be more able to contextualise the systems and propose creative, site-specific adaptations, which can then be integrated in the final designs.

Through this process it is hoped that future decisions will be based on actual knowledge of the systems, rather than on assumptions and beliefs.  Therefore, debriefing workshops are needed throughout the demonstration period to gather feedback on the users’ perspectives and understanding of the systems. It is also essential that the engineers and planners involved are willing to listen to suggestions, integrate innovative proposals, work around local barriers, and generally be flexible to a process that will not be short or clearly defined.