Photo story: Promoting sanitation with women and men, girls and boys in Banjarmasin, Indonesia

As part of her advisory work for the Indonesian Sanitation Sector Development Program (ISSDP) in 14 towns of Indonesia IRC’s Christine Sijbesma is assisting the programme on gender and participation. In April 2009 she and the local team faciltated a rapid and participatory assessment in two high-priority communities in Banjarmasin on sanitation needs by women and men. These assessments allow women and usually “forgotten” men to formulate demands for sanitation improvements. It gives pointers on their willingness and capacity to contribute in better-off, worse-off and in-between groups. It also provides insights in the degree of organization and influence of women and men and local cadres. The resulting scores give a ranking of the high-priority communities in terms of conditions, demand and organizational capacity, which helps high risk communities and the city sanitation working group to select the first community/ies for rapid action and a more likely quick success.