Thuy Thanh Ky is a mason in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam. He is 43 years old and has a completed secondary school education. He has a wife and four children. Mr. Ky, from Binh Trieu Commune, Thang Binh District, was a poor farmer until he took up part-time masonry in 1996 to make some extra money. His business went well and after two years he became a full-time mason. Until 2001, he worked with a group of 7-8 other masons, mostly close friends and relatives.

Homes with toilets

They started with some small contracts to build houses, and at the beginning most of these did not include a toilet. In 2003/2004, the demand for sanitary toilets in the home began to increase, so he decided to concentrate on building toilets.

Through his work he has built a good network and can draw on other masons in the area to share work with. The customers choose him because his skills are good and he has a good price-quality mix.

Mr. Ky and his fellow masons well remember the Rural Sanitation Marketing Project and its NGO International Development Enterprises (IDE). He had wanted them to train him as toilet mason, but was not chosen, perhaps because there were already a lot of masons in his commune. However, he managed to get hold of the project manual on building sanitary toilets and studied the models recommended by the project. He also learned from masons who had received training. As his contacts in the commune and his technique improved, he got more contracts for building toilets, not only in his own commune, but also in other communes.

Now eight toilets per month

He is part of a working group of about 20 masons who build about eight toilets per month, working in pairs. For a whole house, they work in a group of 10-20 masons. His family income has increased and his life is better. Some customers are late in paying, but as they are people from his own commune, he is not worried. To his great happiness, his oldest son now follows in his footsteps and has also become a mason.

This is one of several stories coming from recent field research into the sustainability of rural sanitation marketing by the World Bank Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) and the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Partnership (RWSSP) in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

Ends

The study was done by IRC and ADCOM Consultants in Hanoi, Vietnam, with Dr. Christine Sijbesma of IRC as team leader and Dr. Truong Xuan Truong of ADCOM as field team leader. They were asked to review the sustainability of the DANIDA-supported pilot project on rural sanitation marketing in Thanh Hoa and Quang Nam provinces, Vietnam, two and a half years after the completion of a pilot project.

International Development Enterprises (IDE) carried out this pilot project on rural sanitation marketing from January 2003 to December 2006, to provide lessons for Vietnam’s national rural sanitation programme and the Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing (TSSM) project of WSP. The aim was to increase and speed up sanitation coverage without household subsidies by increasing demand and improving the supply of sanitary household toilets. Jacqueline Devine was WSP's Task Manager.

Gender equity in practice in Vietnam,

where grandfathers take children to the

toilet. Photo: ADCOM, Vietnam 2009

Dr. Christine Sijbesma and Dr. Truong Xuan Truong

Tags: capacity development, east asia & pacific, on-site sanitation