It Takes a Village to Change a Mind

Gospel for Asia (GFA World), Wills Point, Texas – Discussing the challenge to change minds on open defecation in Asia.

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” —Galatians 6:9

If all your friends are doing it, would you jump off a cliff? That sounds like something your mom might have said. But what if the cliff is really just a big rock on a bank, and there’s a beautiful, clear swimming hole down below?

Perspective changes everything, doesn’t it?

Peer pressure can sometimes be great. In parts of Asia where open defecation is still widely practiced, tradition says that’s how things are done. But times are changing. Education is spreading. Nudges from the community to break with tradition and use a latrine can save lives.

It takes a village to change a mind, and that’s happening throughout rural Asia right now.



Proactive Communities Make Open Defecation Less Socially Acceptable

In the hours after dusk and before dawn, a ritual as old as time happens in rural villages throughout Asia. With small containers of water known as dabbas for washing, people set out to find a secluded place and tend to nature’s call.

That’s the signal for villagers to leap into action. It might be rude, and it might be embarrassing. But the way they see it, it’s effective and that’s all that matters.

According to The Guardian, men, women and even children are getting involved with the community-led total sanitation effort. When they spot people carrying a dabba, they know where they’re headed, and it’s not to use a sanitary latrine. These villagers whistle, shout and overturn water containers, all in an effort to meet an ambitious goal: total sanitation by autumn of next year.

October 2, 2019 is the 150th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi, who famously championed sanitation and cleaning up polluted waterways.

Yet, not everyone believes that open defecation is bad, even though government-run campaigns have sought to educate the public about the link between water pollution, disease and this age-old practice. But community groups such as the Dabba Dol Gang are committed to stopping open defecation and changing people’s minds, even if they must resort to catching people in the act or nearly so.


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