Bangladesh: WaterAid gets Swiss and Swedish grants for WASH projects

WaterAid has signed funding agreements with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) for two WASH projects in Bangladesh.

Photo: WaterAid/ Abir Abdullah & ASM Shafiqur Rahman

SDC and WaterAid signed a grant agreement on 30 November 2011 for a 316 million Taka (US$ 3.84 million) three year rural WASH programme. SDC will provide 265.5 million Taka (US$ 3.23 million), and WaterAid the rest. If successful, SDC will extend support for another 3 years.

Most of the funding will go the ‘Promotion of water supply, sanitation and hygiene in hard -to-reach areas of rural Bangladesh’ project, which aims to provide safe drinking water to 500,000 rural people, latrines to 1.3 million and hygiene education to another 1 million people. WaterAid’s inclusion and climate change programmes will also benefit.

Thailand, Bangkok: struggling to clear garbage in flood crisis

Garbage piled up on a flooded street in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: Getty Images / WSJ

Industrial parks in Bangkok are being threatened after residents in Bangkok’s northeast demolish government-built levies to release the stagnant, garbage-ridden water that was building up in their neighbourhoods, writes the Wall Street Journal.

Flooded roads are preventing garbage collectors getting to many areas—raising fears over the risk of disease and over the blockage of drains, which is impeding the flow of water into the sea. Bangkok produces about 8,700 tons of rubbish a day—roughly a quarter of Thailand’s total. Added to that figure is the additional trash flowing into the city from northern provinces.

Asia: accelerated and sustainable progress in sanitation and hygiene is within our reach, hygiene experts say

Accelerated and sustainable progress in sanitation and hygiene is within reach in Asia, as long as we aim at district-wide coverage and build a broad alliance under leadership of local governments. This is the main conclusion of sanitation and hygiene experts from five countries (Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia) participating in a workshop for governance on water, sanitation and hygiene organized by the Nepal government together with SNV Netherlands Development Organisation and the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre from 13 to 17 September 2011.

Regional sharing and learning from experiences is an important aspect of the Sustainable Sanitation and Hygiene for All programme being implemented in 17 districts across Nepal, Bhutan, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia, implemented by local government partners and assisted by SNV and IRC since 2008. Last year, this programme was intensified with co-funding from the AusAID Civil Society WASH Fund and recently with support from DFID in Vietnam. The aim is to contribute to giving two million rural people access to improved hygiene and sanitation facilities by the end of 2015.

Bangladesh: BRAC video shows importance of school sanitation for girls

This new 9 minute video shows how BRAC is addressing high absenteeism rates among female students through a water, sanitation and hygiene programme in nearly 3,000 schools across rural Bangladesh. The programme includes menstrual hygiene facilties.

[Female students] have expressed that something so simple like as a sanitary latrine can change their entire educational experience.

The video was directed and edited by Sara Liza Baumann of Old Fan Films.

India, Kerala: “Green Army” school hygiene cartoons

Cartoons promoting promoting hygiene and cleanliness on e-toilets. Photo: The Hindu

An Indian e-toilet manufacturer has partnered with a local animation institute to create hygiene promotion cartoons for schools.

Eram Scientific Solutions with Toonz Academy has created the “Green Army” cartoon characters to make students aware of cleanliness and hygiene. The characters were selected based on a competition conducted among the students of the academy.

Crow, the sweeper of nature, keeps the surroundings clean by eating up the organic wastes. Earthworm, known as the plough of farmers, ploughs the soil and keeps it fertile, frog eats up the insects, mushroom absorbs all the organic waste dissolving them in soil and the cat buries its excreta. These soldiers will reach out to various schools along with two more characters Shuchi and Joy, to teach the students about the necessity of keeping the place tidy.

The Green Army premiered at the South Govt Girls Higher Secondary School (GGHSS) in Ernakulam, Kerala, as part of the  suchi@school (Sustainable Comprehensive Hygiene Initiative) project. The project aims to ensure adequate sanitation facilities in all government and government-aided schools in Ernakulam district.

The cartoon characters can be seen on the walls of school model Delight e-toilets supplied to the Ernakulam school by Eram Scientific Solutions.

Related news: India, Kerala: girls’ school in Ernakulam first to get e-toilet, Sanitation Updates, 27 Jul 2011

Related web sites:

• Eram Scientific Solutions
• Toonz Academy
• P. Rajeev - suchi@school project
• IRC - WASH in Schools

Source: Green army all set for action!, The Hindu, 08 Aug 2011

WSSCC’s Global Sanitation Fund programme in Nepal seeks sub-grantees

UN-Habitat, the Executing Agency for the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council’s (WSSCC) Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) programme in Nepal, is now seeking expressions of interest for potential sub-grantees to carry out GSF work on the ground in the country.

UN-Habitat will implement the hygiene and sanitation programme in five districts: Arghakhanchi, Bajura, Bardiya, Sindhupalchowk and Sunsari, and in the municipalities of Dharan, Gularia, Inaruwa, Itahari and Tikapur.

Sub-grantees can be Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs), Community Based Organizations (CBOs), private firms and local government bodies.

Deadline: 28 January 2011

For more details read the full Call for Expression of Interest (EOI)

Related web site: WSSCC – Global Sanitation Fund

Please do not send EOIs or requests for information to WASH news Asia & Pacific

Sharing experiences: effective hygiene promotion in South-East Asia and the Pacific

Parry, J. Kathy Shordt, K., Cousineau, D. and Wicken, J. (eds) (2010). Sharing experiences : effective hygiene promotion in South-East Asia and the Pacific. Mitcham, Vic,. Australia, Water Aid Austrakia ; Brisbane, Qld, Australia, International WaterCentre (IWC) ; The Hague, The Netherlands, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. 74 p. : boxes, fig. photogr., tab. ISBN 978-1-921499-03-6. Download document in full and by chapter.

This publication searches for answers to the question: What makes hygiene promotion work? The search is guided by two keynote papers and 11 project case studies. Each of the case studies examines hygiene promotion from its own perspective, ranging from large national campaigns to remote island communities. The majority of case studies describe experiences in the Pacific and South-East Asia, while a few highlight different approaches and issues from other regions. The case studies are grouped according to the three main
approaches to hygiene promotion: community-based approaches, campaign approaches and a school focus. Key learnings from the 11 case studies are presented using the FOAMS model for behaviour change:
F: Focus practices and focus groups;
O: Opportunities to practice the behaviour
A: Ability to practice
M: Motivation to practice
S: Sustained behaviour change

Listen below to the key lessons from the book

India, Nagaland: sanitary napkin vending machines installed in schools

Photo: Eastern Mirror newspaper

Automatic sanitary napkin vending machines have been installed in five schools in Kohima district, Nagaland, as part of India’s total sanitation campaign. The installation was an initiative of the Communication and Capacity Devlopment Unit of Nagaland’s Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) and the Sulabh School Sanitation Clubs (SSSC), New Delhi, in collaboration with the School Education Department. The sanitary napkins cost about (US$ Rs. 3 (6.7 US dollar cents) each.

Pakistan: sanitation crucial to survival for flood victims

Millions remain without proper sanitation in flood-affected Pakistan.

“Sanitation is ‘the invisible problem’ in disaster relief and by highlighting the problem, behaviour change happens,” according to Bill Fellows, the water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) global cluster coordinator working with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the WASH cluster lead agency.

Hygiene is four times as important as clean drinking water for preventing diarrheal disease according to research published in The Lancet medical journal [1]. Whilst in flood devastated Pakistan, access to clean drinking water is on the rise, thanks to the efforts of WASH cluster member agencies, with 2.5 million people receiving clean drinking water every day, the attention to sanitation has become critical in preventing disease outbreaks.

UNICEF, in cooperation with the government, is implementing hygiene education in relief camps through a “no open defecation campaign”. “This is based on a system developed in Bangladesh and helps affected communities take a first step to achieve basic sanitation in disaster affected communities”, said Fellows.

In addition, the hygiene education campaign includes teaching flood survivors to build open pit latrines. As part of the flood relief efforts 2,723 emergency latrines have been built, benefitting 40,000 people.

Female health workers and Pakistan Red Crescent volunteers are also on the frontline of hygiene education, which is one of the most critical components in reducing water-borne disease. To date, these volunteers have helped educate almost 750,000 people on the benefits of good hygiene.

To compliment hygiene education, soap and hygiene kits are needed. UNICEF reports 400,000 hygiene kits are in the pipeline along with three million bars of soap.

“It is crucial in disaster response that flood affected communities receive latrines and soap, as well as hygiene education to prevent illness and disease”, said Manuel Bessler, Head of the Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Pakistan.

In addition to water and sanitation flood relief activities, UNICEF and its partners are engaged in an integrated approach to provide humanitarian assistance to millions of flood survivors through health and nutrition, child protection, education and prevention of child trafficking.

[1] The same conclusion can be found in a recent article by Cairncross et al. in the International journal of epidemiology

Read the latest Pakistan Floods WASH-related news on ReliefWeb

Related web site: Global WASH Cluster

Source: ReliefWeb, 14 Sep 2010

Viet Nam: hygiene promotion should build on community action

The path down to a stream where children defecate. Viet Nam, Lao Ca province. Photo: Danida

More affordable sanitation technologies and participatory community interventions will make future hygiene promotion more effective, say two PhD-fellows Xuan Le Thi Thanh and Thilde Rheinländer. They have spent 16 months in ethnic minority communities in the Northern Province Lao Cai to do research on hygiene and sanitation promotion in the Danida-funded research project SANIVAT (Water Supply Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion in Vietnam). SANIVAT supports research and capacity building on the impacts of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions and investigates how people perceive hygiene, health risks and hygiene promotion.