Lives Touched
2003 - 2004
Raina-II and Memari-II Blocks in Barddhaman District, West Bengal
The Story
In the late ‘90s and early ‘00s in many countries there existed a high prevalence of water and sanitation-related diseases, causing many people, children in particular, to fall ill or even die. Improved hygiene practices were considered essential to contain the disease. While appropriate hygiene education can bring in a change in mindset for a change in hygiene behaviour, for most hygiene behaviour appropriate water and sanitation facilities are needed to allow people to transform intention to change into real change. Hijli INSPIRATION partnered UNICEF in the programme “Health and Hygiene Education – A step towards Community Sanitation” which intended to design a methodology for developing healthy and environmentally friendly behaviour and practice among Primary School Children and further transmission of the behaviour to the community through the guardians and family. The approach evolved through a series of iterations where every step required multiple re-doings to ultimately arrive at a tool for strengthening appropriate hygiene practice.
The target groups or partners in the programme, as we had conceived them to be, included –
Direct Partners
- The Students
- The Guardians and the Family
- The Community
The Story
- The Teachers
- The Village Water Committee
- The Panchayat
- The Administration particularly the School Inspectors
- The Local NGO-s/Sanitary Marts
Achievements and Impact
- Health and Hygiene Behaviour Change/Improvement in Schools through interactive aids, handy and convenient for teachers and facilitators.
- Involvement of guardians and formation of Neighborhood Action Groups to serve as resource/information points for the Community.
- Capacity building of Guardian Action Group through appropriate training on preventive health and the technicalities of sanitary toilet installation and use to act as a local resource group.
- Empowerment of Students towards a Self-Help Approach for Personal and Environmental Sanitation Management – The School Health Solders.
- Action Group and the Health soldiers collectively involved in Environmental Sanitation Situation Review and involved action.
IN sight IN mind
- “IN sight IN mind” – VISUAL BOARD – Health and Hygiene Behaviour Monitoring Board – the use of Bindi-s to indicate good or bad behaviour- black- bad /red.
- Immediate impacts – Improved use of footwear. Better utilization of school toilet
Child is the Father of the Man
- “Child is the Father of the Man” – Child in action in monitoring and maintaining environmental sanitation.
- Creation of ‘Student Health Soldiers’ oriented on converting convert their school to an ideal school through the Self Help Approach. Use of ideal school interactive poster for planning activities.
- Students imbibed the Self Help Approach – visible impacts observed in garden development, premise cleanliness and garbage disposal in a garbage pit. Some schools like Kamarhati PS and Mohanpur PS in Raina-II have also dug garbage pits for waste disposal.
Many Hands Make Work Light
- “Many Hands Make Work Light” – Community involvement. Guardians Motivated to contribute to school cleanliness and hygiene and general villagers donated bamboo for making the fence of the garden and also provided free labour in garden preparation, fencing and garbage pit digging.
- Neighborhood Action Groups drawn from the guardians involved in community mobilisation for sanitary toilet installation and use. Capacity building exercise for handling queries from fellow villagers and effective peer exchanges was a pre-cursor to the motivation drive.
Sanitation a Mass Movement Through Stakeholder Involvement
The Administration, NGOs and CBOs as partners in the Initiative – joined hands in replication.