A Few Steps Futher Down The Path

Well time has passed and unfortunately as far as I am aware the problem of hygiene and soap and access to sanitation at the Primary schools in Chamwino remains. Perhaps for some students learning through the programs we created made some behavior changes and raised their awareness of the importance of Sanitation and Hygiene… which may stay with them for life.

I find myself after some time back in Perth, Western Australia. Perth and Fremantle (where I live) are fantastic places, beautiful, clean, friendly, full of amazing things to do and wonderful scenery. It is also a place were living sustainably is far from our reality. Consumption and the drive to have more and newer things is at an all time high. In this disposable culture we seem to be losing site of a cleaner greener way to live. Lately  the motto I am aiming to go by is “consume less and Live more”.

So in my stumbling to find the sustainable path I have been hunting for an “eco-job”, looking at my daily living and figuring out how to be greener day to day. After lots of frustration and also inspiration, I have started a Eco-Entrepreneur venture called Freo Green Guide. It’s a web based directory of all things Green/Eco/and Sustainable in Fremantle, Western Australia. But the vision for Freo Green Guide is much more.

The aim of Freo Green Guide is to Inspire Greener Consumers and Connect them with Local Eco-Entrepreneurs, Bussinesses, Products and Organisations. It also is a platform on which to inspire people to live a life that is less about consumption and more about what matters. The experience, environment and people that surrounds us. More about living to enjoy life, than to buy the next igadet.

Freogreenguide.com is just a baby… only 3 months old. But this is one fast growing baby! It is super exciting and for me super inspirational! It has me looking at my eco-footprint every day and changing the way I live to be aligned with Freo Green Guide is a challenge and a pleasure all at once!

So it’s a big Swap from sanitation and hygiene ( which I do hope to return to), but it’s on the sustainable path just a bit different.

Check out the new site… and I will keep this blog casually updated about how we go and my experiences as a new budding Eco-Entrepreneur! www.freogreenguide.com

x

Jamie

Over 500 Great Minds to pick…

The Global Forum on Sanitation and Hygiene has been such an inspiring and thought provoking experience for me so far. It has been amazing to meet so many people from around the world here, and hearing about the amazing work that is being done. What is even more interesting is hearing about the challenges people face and how they overcome them or the lessons they have learned. The sharing that goes on at these events does so much for pushing the overall work on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene forward.

Today was a great  day,  I was able to talk to two experienced WASH practitioners about school WASH. Hearing them give presentations about school WASH and hearing their different perspectives ( from different countries) was very insightful. I was lucky enough to be able to chat with them and pick their brains a bit, on some of the School WASH challenges I have been facing in my work.

The big thing I asked them about was how to ensure that soap remains available at the schools. Every time we put out soap it gets stolen in a short amount of time. The students in Chamwino see it as a valuable item and take it ( not necessarily the worst thing to be happening). However, this makes it so hard to keep encouraging kids to wash their hand with soap at the school. Now when taking to these experts in this field, I didn’t get a simple fix… I don’t think there is one. What I did get, is some suggestions and they got me thinking about things in a different way. One suggestion that hit home is that the wider community  around the school needs to have WASH issues addressed as well. This is very true, especially for Chamwino. The school is not an island, and WASH in the local community has so many issues that  need to be addressed for school WASH to be effective.

Another idea which being done by a great Pilipino organisation is group hand washing at school; this where in the classrooms a time is slotted into the day for the class as a group to go and wash their hands with soap at the same time ( they use low cost but great infrastructure to have 10 or more students washing their hands at once). This organisation also encourages teeth brushing in the same method,  also something that is so needed among students in Chamwino schools.  It’s so inspirational being around such great minds all focused on addressing the same problem.

One slight disappointment that I need to mention is that nowhere in this conference on Sanitation and Hygiene is solid or liquid waste addressed. To me solid waste is a Sanitation issues and a huge one at that, as is waste water.  This conference tends to keep  the definition of sanitation as human waste.  I know that focusing narrowly can mean we can be more effective, and we can’t solve all the world’s problems especially not in one conference. But it almost feels like solid waste management is completely ignored here. You would  think with this many practitioners and experts  here on sanitation it should have at least made a small appearance on the agenda.  Well I guess I will have to seek out the international conference on Solid Waste Management next,  to get my sanitation fill ( ha ha! pun totally intended).

Overall, I am loving the  experience of being at this conference. I think it has been immensely inspiring and insightful and I am looking forward to the rest of it.

x

Jamie

Global Forum on Sanitation and Hygiene

I am currently in Mumbai, India attending the Global Forum for Sanitation and Hygiene. I just finished my first day of conferencing… and it has been great so far. So many passionate people focused on WASH. It’s inspiring to be around.

This is the first time a conference has focusing on just Sanitation and Hygiene with out the water component. The speakers have been very interesting addressing things so far like communications for behavioral changes, case studies of larger sanitation initiatives in India and elsewhere, and an overview of the Sanitation and Hygiene sector and how it needs to move forward to address the 2.6 billion people that do not have access to basic sanitation.

I am trying my best to get out there an meet people in the field and am trying to get a sense of the next steps I should take in my career to pursue this path. It is exciting and daunting at the same time. I feel a bit outta my league here, but I am happy to be able to relate what people are talking about to my school WASH project back in Tanzania.

I will be sure to post more about the conference soon. I just wanted to give a short update for now.

x
Jamie
ps. i love Indian food… vegetarian’s heaven ( and a whole week with out bean and rice as my staple diet)!!!

Rotary to the Rescue

Just as I have started to feel well underway in my project and internship, I have realised it is quickly coming to an end. This sustainability of my project has been a worry from the start.  I have wanted to create a project that will last and I feel if I had longer ( like another 1.5 years or more) I could have developed something more community driven and self-sustaining.  However in 4 months this has not been possible.

Instead I have tried to address a need as holistically as I could with both education and infrastructure for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene issues.  So far I feel the education component has been working, but we need to reach more students and have it continued over time.  The infrastructure is still remaining a barrier to improved sanitation at these schools.

I am committed to raising the needed money ( in the Ball park of $25,000 USD) for new toilets at these schools. My worry from the beginning has been going away for a long period of time to do this and nothing changing at these schools in the interim.

I have been really looking for an organisation to be able to financially manage and implement the building of the new toilets here in Morogoro. Ideally as funds are raised improvements can be done in stages at the schools. I have been looking into what organisations in the community could take this on. Unfortunately the organisation I work with Faraja does not have the capacity to be able to do this. Someone recommended Rotary Club Morogoro as an option. Rotary is a long established strong community service organisation, the exact type of organisation that could really help this project along.

I sent a blind email to Rotary Club Morogoro’s contact email address, asking if they would be interested in a partnership with a local community project. I was surprised to receive an email back asking me to come and present a proposal at their next meeting.

So I nervously presented at their meeting and they liked what I presented and said they would be interested in working on this project for the implementation of new toilets at the schools.  They also said they would try to help support the education component to continue as well. HOORAY!!! It felt sooo good to hear their response. So now I am working on a more detailed proposal to present to them . It is a huge relief to know that this project won’t come to a halt when I leave and it will be continued until the sanitation and hygiene conditions at these schools are improved… which is the ultimate goal.

x

Jamie

Voodoo… Yes Voodoo.

So as is expected working on this kind of project can have its ups and downs. There are some days when things flow like clock work and others where you hit road bump after road bump. I have had my share of both so far.

The WASH clubs I have set up at the schools are going along ok ( the last two weeks of clubs were cancelled due to mid-term break, but should be getting back on track now).  I have moved to focus a bit more attention on infrastructure improvements to pair with the education component.

I had a Sanitation Engineer come and visit the school with me so I could get some advice on how to approach things, and Ohhhh! the advice I received. We were looking at the different toilets and discussing potential improvements. Then we got to the toilet block that is not being used at all. There are 8 toilets not being used and I was told by multiple students that they did not use them because the thought the slabs on the floor would fall in. I thought the slabs looked a bit thin, but I didn’t feel it was unsafe. The Sanitation engineer thought the same.

So, he started asking some students near by why they don’t use the toilets, and they told him that a year or more ago the toilets had a curse put on them by a local witch doctor…………….. yes, that’s right a local witch doctor voodoo’d the toilet and the students won’t use them because they think bad things will happen to them.

WHAT am I suppose to do to solve this one???? I was flabbergasted when I heard this and we went and asked the head teacher from one of the schools about it and he said yeah that happened and that’s why they don’t use the toilets.  Hmmmm, guess he forgot to tell me that bit of information earlier.

I have an idea… anti-voodoo paint?

No, really not sure how to solve this one. This is one of the humps ( one of the more interesting ones) and the others take the form of financial constraints, lack of  support from my local organisation, education not turning into behavior changes…etc.

So related to this, I  have decided to head to an international conference called the Global Forum on Sanitation and Hygiene in Mumbai next month. I hoping to learn  more about this field, and get to meet people who can shed some light on the challenges that come with this work.  I am also hoping this conference will give me some insight into how to develop my career in this field more – ie. masters, work experience, how to get jobs?.

The whole WASH sector has captured me and I am ready to move my career in this direction. It covers environment, health, community development,  all the things I want to work on. There is also a massive need globally ( which hopefully means I can get work in it too). So this conference will hopefully be a good experience to figure out what is  the next step and what to do about Voodoo’d toilets.

x

Jamie

Tippy Taps

One of the major causes of illness due to poor hygiene and sanitation is not washing your hands after going to the toilet. The simple act of washing hands with soap and water can reduce diarrhoea by over 40%. This seemed like  a great place to start when looking at how small infrastructure improvements can increase Hygiene and Sanitation practices at the primary schools.

Since the schools have only one water tap each it seemed like we needed to have more accessible points for students to wash their hands.  In the great wealth of Water Sanitation Hygiene information out there,  I came across Tippy Taps, -low cost simple to build hand washing stations. Basically it’s a jug on a string that when you push on a foot pedal it tips forward and water comes out slowly and then tips back when you release the pedal. Genius!

Tippy Tap - low cost hand washing station

So with the YCI volunteers we decided to build a few and see how they would go at the schools.  Since the toilet block is set a little away from the classrooms we decided to build the tippy taps nearer to the toilets.

Of course as soon as we show up we get circled by a hundred children, not the easiest environment to work in.

slightly difficult working conditions... but fun!

but we had some students step up and really help us in our Tippy Tap building endeavour.  There had to be some improvising to get them functional  and in the end they worked well.

 

Group of students that were great Tippy Tap building helpers

A couple hours later we had built two tippy taps at the toilets (as a trial) and since there were so many children around they were all watching what we were doing ,and then used the tippy taps when we were done. We provided soap by attaching it to a rope at the tippy taps.

We built the Tippy taps on a Friday and we came back on the Monday to make sure they were still there and functional.

Our tippy taps were both destroyed over the weekend. Very disheartening. The wood, string, jugs and soap and gravel for the soak pit was all taken.  This was a wake up call. In this community the cheap resources that we used to make the tippy taps, are considered valuable to members of this community.

We had to come up with another solution. Two of the schools are in a compound that gets locked at the end of the day.  It’s not ideal to build Tippy Taps in the school since they are  not close to the toilet blocks, but at least this way they would be more protected from vandalism.  So we built two more Tippy taps inside the compound.

Our round 2 of Tippy taps, this time in the school compound.

We came back the next day and the Tippy taps were there, but they were empty – (not being used) and the soap was gone.

So what seemed like an easy option to address a big issue of the lack of hand washing… is not so easy.  The school really needs proper infrastructure to address this issue. There are too many students coming from poor households to be able to leave soap out and not have it taken, it’s a commodity

There are many infrastructure improvements needed on the schools current toilets and I have begun to work with a contractor to try make this happen.  However, costs are the limiting factor.  The improvements I am trying to make are things like doors on the current toilets, new slabs ( floors ) on 8 toilets not being used,  soak pits for the water taps (where  large pools of water form),  and permanent hand washing stations. I am also looking to fund-raise for one of the schools to have their water bill paid ($60/month) as their water is currently shut off. I am trying to raise from $1200 – $5000 ( the more money the more improvements can be done) to do improvements at the three schools.

Youth Challenge International has setup a fundraising page to help address the costs of these improvements.  If you would like to donate to do improvements at the school please go here. ( you can get a tax deductible receipt for your donation but please note 10% of your donation is kept for administration costs)

If you would like to donate and do not need a tax receipt you can contact me directly at Jamie.vane@gmail.com to donate and 100% of your donation will go straight to improvements at the school.

Any amount of money will be a big help to get some improvements done at these schools. Thanks for any support you can give!

x

Jamie

WASH Activity Day!

The Big WASH activity day at the three Chamwino primary schools ( with 2800 students) has come and gone,  but I wanted to let you know how it went!

We had just finished three days of Peer education training on the Friday and the Monday was WASH Activity day. So we had 2 hours on Fri and  all Sat and Sun to plan it and get everything ready.

I knew the day was going to be hectic. I was worried, but also felt like we were as prepared as can be.

I Woke up at 530 am…. not something I normally like to do. Got things together and went to Chamwino, about 15 mins away. As I was leaving the house one of the  local volunteers texts me and says he’s not coming. He is one of translators that we needed for the day. First hump of the day….so I tried the old guilt trip and told him we really needed him and expected him to be there and I just hoped he would show.

I get to the schools and start setting up. It’s 7:30 and I am ready to go, but I am waiting on the YCI volunteers – 5 of them, the YCI staff member here in Morogoro, and 15 Peer educators. So I begin to worry, naturally! We are supposed to be starting at 8am and at 7:45 I don’t even have anyone there that can speak Swahili yet.

So the volunteer that said he wasn’t going to come, shows up ( thank you universe) and then the YCI volunteers arrive with all the supplies to set up. Then it’s GO GO GO!   I get the first set of students (600 of them into 6 groups) organised. The volunteers start setting up the stalls. But the key to making this whole day work was the fact that we were going to have 15 Swahili speaking Peer educators come!

8:30 rolls around…. they were supposed to be here by 7:30, but we had to start.  So our 6 stations get moved down to 4. I still only have two translators. One station starts without translation… the education probably slightly lost in the process. I had the two translators running back and forth to translate between groups. Madness!

We somehow all get through the first sessions. Then just after 9am the Peer Educators arrive and join the stations!  YAH!

So by the second session ( the next group of students) we have 5 full functioning stations with 600 students moving through them.

Here is an overview of the stations we used:

1. Poo in the Loo ( my favourite!!!): We got ply board and cut circles into the middle of it and painted a squat toilet on it ( that’s what they use here) and had socks tied and full of sand and the students had to throw the socks into the hole – get the poo in the loo! The station talked about the importance of  using a toilet and how it can impact our health if we don’t!

The Poo in the Loo station

2. A Glitter Ball hand washing station:  We had them play monkey in the middle with a Ball that was covered in glitter ( which by the end was just covered in dirt) and then as the ball was passed the students got glitter which represented  germs on their hands. We then taught them the proper way to wash your hands.

3.  Clean Water Game: a great game was made up by one of the volunteers who drew out pictures on signs all about clean water. She would show the sign explain it and then the students would have to do an action to mimic the sign. For example boiling water is shown on the picture below. There was also cover water, solar disinfection, and a drinking clean water action with a sound effect. The students loved it!

Clean water game - Boiling Water

4. Amoeba Tag: We had an elaborate game planned (for those of you who remember the days of summer camp it was based on Wizards, Giants and Elves). We realized soon that these kids have never played a tag  type game before. So our game was struggling a bit. Larissa who was leading the station thought up on the spot a new game (simple) all about germs catching you and having to link up if you are tagged by the germs (amoeba tag). Once it got going the students really enjoyed it.  The station also taught about coughing and more on the spread of germs.

                                                       

Amoeba Tag

5.  Good and Bad hygiene practices: The last station was all about good and bad hygiene practices and the students had to look at a picture and determine if it was a good or bad hygiene practice as a group and why.

Overall the stations went really well. So we had over 2500 students move through these stations over a 6 hour period! Phew!!!!

I power walked the whole day in between stations to make sure they were going well and also that the transition between schools and sessions when as smooth as it can with nearly 600 students at one time. I pulled muscles in both my legs and my feet! lol!

As this was going on in the afternoon we set up a roped area where we were going to have a DJ and Drama group perform and a Dance competition.

As soon as the music started up the kids all gathered around. We did the fun Clean water activity with the signs and actions ( boiling water) with all the kids gathered around. Then I spoke and did a recap of what the lessons to be learned were and talked a bit about the clubs. We also had two speakers from the Municipal office give talks about WASH. The drama group did a skit on hand washing and we finished it all off with a dance competition for all the students ( something they love to do here). The dancing is so crazy girls shake their booty here from the time they know how to walk! But it was great fun.

It was an amazing, exhausting day it was filled with lots of hiccups but I think the volunteers and I rolled with the punches and pulled it off. We sent three messages out – Wash your hands with soap, use a toilet and drink safe water. So if even some of the 2500 + students got those messages than it was a success in my mind.

I was relieved  when it was over and done, and then we moved on to starting the clubs up at each school and started working on some toilet repairs!!!

x

jamie

Amazing Youth!

It’s been too long since writing…. But I have been swept into a WASH whirlwind this past month ( and I really am enjoying the fact I am so busy I don’t have time to write a blog or clean my house!). So I am trying to back on track and cover the awesome things that have happened this month.

The last post I put up had a link to another blog ( YCI blog page) I wrote, on training the Secondary School Peer Educators. It has been so amazing working with these students that I need to write more about them. They have been such a breath of fresh air for me in this whole experience and I am so excited about their role in the project.

From the beginning of researching and designing this WASH project I was searching for as many case studies of how School WASH education could be done informally, and clubs were the go. However , most case studies  used an enthusiastic teacher to lead the after school clubs. The teachers at the Chamwino Primary schools have their hands full, they teach classes with 60-100 students at a time  with minimal resources and in very awful classroom conditions.

I started looking at other options and thought the peer educator route may be the answer. I haven’t been able to find other examples of how WASH clubs have worked with secondary school level peer educators.  But for me the benefits of these peer educators leading the clubs are many. For one, we can have 6 clubs going at once- expanding the education out wider. Two, these peer educators are getting the benefits of increased knowledge, leadership skills and increased confidence; all things that I hope will help them in the future. Three, the peer educators are looked up to by the primary school students and having them lead the clubs makes them seem like something other than another school class and students being lectured by teachers. Hopefully, this will make the education and positive behaviour changes more effective.

I had a lot of worries regarding this whole process: would the secondary students want to do this?, would they be capable?, how much training would they need? etc. The list goes on. My worries were unnecessary, (but I will worry no matter what!) the 15 students I have recruited are amazing.

Group photo Peer Educators and YCI volunteers

They are ambitious, driven, capable, intelligent, talented and inspiring young people! As a safety net I recruited extra peer educators thinking some would drop out through the process. Instead I have had to make groups of three to facilitate the clubs, instead of just two, since all the students have stayed on board!

The group during WASH Leader Training

From training these students, to having them work with us on a WASH activity day at the three primary schools, to seeing them run their first club this week, I am over the moon about how the group has developed and how strong and talented they are.

Having chatted personally with some of them about their ambitions, I was impressed to find out that two of the young guys have their dreams set on becoming doctors, and this opportunity to teach about Health and WASH, and be leaders of the clubs is something they hope will help them on the path to achieve their goals. The same goes with the rest of the group, they want to make a difference in their community, they want to see changes at these schools and they all want to personally develop as leaders.

I hope this peer educator model will be successful in these WASH clubs and that it can potentially be used more widely in school WASH education elsewhere.

Will write soon about the WASH activity day we had – the mayhem that was 2800 primary students in one event over 8 hours, Fun Fun!

x

Jamie

Happy International Youth Day!

I have just written a blog for YCI on International Youth Day… you can find it –  Here 

Will be updating as soon as possible! Has been a busy busy week!

x
Jamie

A Wake Up Call!

My project is finally underway and it’s a good and nerve wracking feeling at the same time, as I am in this on my own, learning as I go, and hoping to do things right, as best I can!

I went to the three primary schools this week to do a baseline needs assessment of where things are at in terms of sanitation infrastructure, what is being taught about water, sanitation and hygiene issues and the health state of students (ie. absenteeism at school and common illnesses). What my needs analysis came up with felt like a slap across the face.

Of course I knew there were sanitation and hygiene issues at these schools, I had visited the schools and area before and highlighted it as in need of WASH education ( hence this project). When I actually put numbers and data on paper and looked a lot closer at some of the issues I was….Disturbed to say the least.

There are two schools on the same compound that I am working with, one has 702 students and the other has 1142 students. Both the schools share 6 pit latrine drop holes – SIX! This means 332 girls per drop hole and 282 boys per drop hole.

(* Note there is another 6 latrines in the same area, but they are not used by the students because they are poorly built with a thin concrete slab covering the pits. The students refuse to use them as they are scared the floor will collapse and they will fall in)

There is another school in the same area (like 300m’s away) with toilets in a worse state with 163 girls per toilet and 161 boys per toilet.

Not one of the toilets at either school has a DOOR – not one. Now when I say toilets or latrines I am talking about a hole in the ground with a slab covering it. These toilets at the school are in a disgusting state, dirty, flooding, filled (to the brim) pits, they smell putrid, are dark and fly infested.

I had trouble standing in these loos for a few minutes, I can see why the students wouldn’t want to use them. Speaking of which, I saw at least five students in the hour and a half I was there going to the toilet not in the toilet block. In fact there was one young boy that was peeing out in the open and as I walked by he said “Shikamoo” (a formal greeting for someone older than you) in mid-stream. There is a large high grassed field beside the school and I can guarantee that many students would just be using the field regularly rather than the toilets on the compound.

Now the toilets are one problem, hand washing is a whole other issues. There is ONE tap for 1844 students.

There is another single tap at the third school (that was flooding due to the pipe being broken) for the other 974 students. Neither of these taps had soap anywhere near by and any water run-off from the tap would just flood on the ground.

None of the schools provided any drinking water for their students. I saw students drinking straight from the tap or using their hand as a cup to get water straight from the tap. This is town water supply and is not considered safe to drink (even by local standards).

I left the school after doing my needs assessment, overwhelmed. I of course knew these issues were here and saw them before. But the extent is a lot to take in. Especially when I see the numbers and to even get the ratio down to 100 students per toilet, there would need to be 16 new toilets built.

I think saying my work is cut out for me is a complete understatement.

X Jamie