WORLD TOILET DAY! 19th November 2017.

HEEALS celebrated world toilet day in schools by organising Drawing & Debate Competition and Created awareness through showing stop open defecation videos.

STOP Open Defecation Video By HEEALS

Celebrated World Toilet Day !By Creating awareness in schools ,through showing Short video to stop open defecation By HEEALS

Stop Opendefecation ,Swacch Bharat Mission India Campaign By HEEALS

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Volunteer Engagement Program !

Internship Engagement Program 

Volunteer Tour and Travel Program

Gap Year !

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WHY BUILDING TOILETS IS NOT ENOUGH TO STOP OPEN DEFECATION

On 2nd October 2014 Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission. The aim is to eliminate the practice of open defecation by October 2019 by constructing 12 million toilets in rural India.

However, building sanitation facilities is not enough to stop open defecation. As well as the providing of sanitation facilities, it must be ensured that they are in working condition, they must be kept clean and maintained properly. Dirty facilities become unused facilities. That is why creating awareness and understanding among people of the importance of the use and maintenance of sanitation facilities is fundamental. If people do not understand the importance of having, using and maintaining clean toilets, there will not be a behaviour change. Maintenance and use of facilities are great challenges.

Let us take the example of a public school of a village in Western Uttar Pradesh where recently new sanitation facilities have been built. Toilets are separated for boys and girls and seem to be functioning. However, taking a closer look at the inside of the sanitation facilities it is impossible not to notice that the hygienic conditions of the toilets are not appropriate; the floor is wet and dirty and there is no disposal for used sanitary napkins. That is when I have learnt that the people of the village in charge of the cleaning do not carry out properly their work and that the dust bin has been stolen from the toilets.

If toilets are not clean, there is a higher risk of infections and diseases. It can also happen that children would not be inclined to use them. As for girls going to school in their period, it is fundamental to have a place for the disposal of used sanitary napkins to ensure they can change them regularly and without feeling uncomfortable. Toilets need to be cleaned and provided with the essential tools. Attendance of children, particularly girls, improves when they can use good sanitation facilities. Children need to be taught to use, clean and maintain facilities. In addition, people that are in charge of cleaning have to understand the importance and necessity of proper hygienic conditions of toilets.

Creating awareness of the issue is the way to ensure the success of the Clean India Mission. There is no possibility for a behaviour change without it. Especially in the rural area, where is concentrated the 68.85% of the population, is important to make a change since 61% of the population still defecates outside, against the 10% living in the urban area. Open defecation is still practiced even if toilets has been provided. To solve this issue, awareness must be created among all the community. Maintaining clean sanitation facilities is a responsibility of every citizen and it requires the participation of everyone. Behaviour change and communication programmes are much more important than building toilets.

NGOs like Heeals are a fundamental part in the mobilisation and support of local groups. Organising workshops and other educational activities are an effective way to educate children and to include families and members of the community in the awareness process. They can help to develop shared norms in the community and to understand and support hygiene improvement in schools. Awareness raising and promotion in the community is the key for a successful result. 

-Heeals Intern

Sources:

INDIA 2016, A Reference Annual, Compiled by New Media Wing, Publication Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 2016.

https://www.wssinfo.org/documents/?tx_displaycontroller[type]=country_files

http://www.wsp.org/Hygiene-Sanitation-Water-Toolkit/Resources/Readings/IRC_swashh[1].resourcebook.pdf

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/infrastructure/swachh-bharat-abhiyaan-government-builds-7-1-lakh-toilets-in-january/articleshow/46269612.cms?intenttarget=no

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/modi-launches-my-clean-india-campaign/article6468047.ece

Through successful WASH intervention

Through successful WASH intervention, communities access a new service that improves their quality of life, and also learn about equity and inclusion.

The abysmal state of access to safe water and sanitation facilities in the developing world is currently a major cause for alarm; 580,000 children die every year from preventable diarrheal diseases. This is due largely to the 2.5 billion people around the globe who do not have access to safe sanitation. Not only can an effective WASH intervention save lives, it can also engineer changes in the social fabric of communities that adopt these behavioural changes. This points to a key attribute of a successful WASH intervention – that through these programmes, communities not only access a new service that improves their quality of life, but they also learn from being part of a concrete intervention that emphasises equity and inclusion.

Let me explain how. Safe sanitation is essentially ‘total’. In a community, even one family practising open defecation puts the health of other families at risk. Also, unsafe sanitation practices pollute local potable and drinking water sources in the habitations. Together, this can undo any gains from partial coverage of WASH interventions. This much is now widely accepted by sanitation practitioners around the world. However, there remains a serious challenge when it comes to the implementation of this concept.

When a community is introduced to a WASH-focused behaviour change campaign, there are often variations in the levels of take-up in different families. This could be because of several barriers – financial ability, cultural beliefs, education levels, etc. In response, external agencies have many options. They can focus more on families in their behaviour change campaigns, offer them material and financial support or incentives, or exert peer pressure (which may in some cases become coercive, etc).

However, the best approach – whether facilitated by an external agent or not – is for a community to devise a collective response. The issue should be framed as a collective action problem that requires solving for the creation of a public good. In many instances, communities have come together to support the poorest families – social engineering at its finest. At its best, recognising the needs of every member of a community will lead to a recognition of the challenges that the typically marginalised groups face. It is this recognition that could prompt a rethink of social norms and relationships.

On the other hand, the power of peer pressure can be effective. Where families that are able, but unwilling, to construct a toilet and switch behaviour, the initial take-up from other families has a strong demonstration potential. In societies with caste and class differences, this can be deployed effectively to highlight choices that threaten the public good.

Encouraging the development of shared norms and collective action is also a key aspect of determining the role of subsidies in WASH programmes. As research evidence from Bangladesh shows, subsidies could be effective when targeted at communities, instead of at individuals. Where it is possible to measure progress at the community-level, subsidies can be designed and delivered accordingly. This will encourage communities to take up WASH as they would approach say, the building of a road or a school.

This is no longer just a theory. Increasingly now, various organisations have documented such successes. For example, in multiple NGO-led programmes in eastern India and Bangladesh, local community-based organisations formed initially to tackle sanitation went on to engage in collective livelihoods activities. However, as with any other, this theory too should be put to test – evaluated at different sites and for different approaches. Currently, we are not sufficiently focused on the positive social externalities a WASH intervention could generate, and as a result, are running the risk of restricting ourselves to narrow technocratic approaches. This needs to change.

This brings me to a key message I have for WASH interventions: do not hurry into scaling up. Given the urgency of the problem – about 2.5 billion people do not practice safe sanitation – this might seem completely counter-intuitive. However, there is the real risk that aiming for scale will lead to the perpetration of target-driven hardware interventions which will neither change behaviour, not create social cohesion. It is not unusual for organisations that rush to scale end up compromising on exactly those key design elements that made their pilots a success.

In conclusion, it is important to acknowledge that WASH interventions have the potential to go far beyond basic service delivery. In order to realise these gains, one must follow a very careful sequence of steps designed to promote community ownership and systematically change behaviour. The goal should be to nudge communities towards a public spirit and collective problem solving, so that WASH works as an entry point into communities, creating fertile ground for future interventions.

Picture Source :HEEALS 

source: WSSCC

UN health agency unveils sanitation and hygiene plan towards eradicating tropical diseases by 2020

27 August 2015 – The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that it is strengthening water, sanitation and hygiene services to accelerate progress in eliminating and eradicating neglected tropical diseases by 2020 that affect more than 1 billion of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations.

“Millions suffer from devastating WASH [water, sanitation and hygiene] – related tropical diseases – such as soil-transmitted helminthiasis, guinea-worm disease, trachoma and schistosomiasis – all of which affect mainly children” said Dr. Maria Neira, WHO Director for Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health.

“Solutions exist, such as access to safe water, managing human excreta, improving hygiene, and enhancing targeted environmental management. Such improvements not only lead to improved health, but also reduce poverty,” Dr. Neira said in the WHO announcement.

WHO outlined a global plan to better integrate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services with four other public health interventions to accelerate progress in eliminating and eradicating neglected tropical diseases by 2020.

“Targeted water and sanitation interventions are expected to bolster ongoing efforts in tackling 16 out of the 17 neglected tropical diseases, which affect more than 1 billion of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations,” according to WHO.

WHO also said that in 2015 more than 660 million people did not have access to improved water sources, almost 2.5 billion people lacked access to improved sanitation and more than 500,000 million lives are lost each year as a result of neglected tropical diseases.

Besides advocating for basic water, sanitation and hygiene, WHO uses four other key interventions in overcoming the global burden of the neglected tropical diseases. The four strategies are: preventive chemotherapy, innovative and intensified disease management, vector control and veterinary public health services.

The five-year agenda is in line with a World Health Assembly resolution, which calls for the formulation of a new, integrated WHO strategy including a specific focus on promotion of sanitation and hygiene behaviour.

World Toilet Day

World Toilet Day 

On World Toilet Day Volunteers Celebrated Toilet Day In Schools
By Creating Awareness Regarding Toilet Use And Hand Wash With Soap
19th November 2014

Picture gallery : https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.734321726649642.1073741862.287634107985075&type=1

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