Hygiene Promotion - IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

The Project recognises the importance of identifying and training a good cadre ofcommitted field workers for community mobilisation and education, and the dedication offield staff in programme delivery and follow-up with communities. This is both critical forachieving effective programmes and challenging when organisations that field staff comefrom are often faced with various resource constraints, seasonality issues, etc. A soundmonitoring system that captures both community level change indicators and office levelperformance (or process) indicators should assist in identifying ways to enhance field staffeffectiveness.Another challenge is the timing of the provision of protected water systems and latrineswhile promoting on-going hygiene education. For example, delays in drilling when acommunity has already expressed interest in and even provided funding for a watersystem can negatively affect motivational levels for behaviour change. The NORWASPcommunity-based hygiene education programme promotes healthy hygiene practices at 2stages - before the water and latrine facilities are in place and after. Even if peoplerecognise the need for and want a household latrine, for example, there is still the time inbetweendesiring the facility and actually having and using the facility. Discussion andeducation around the benefits and options for safer hygiene practices at the pre-facilitystage is crucial. For example, burying and covering faeces away from the water sourceduring wet and dry seasons, safe disposal of infant faeces, handwashing after defecationand handling of faeces. Some of the practices will remain the same when a facility is inplace and being used regularly (such as handwashing). It is also critical to focus on a fewkey messages. Handwashing at critical times has been identified as a critical practice forthe reduction of diarrhoeal diseases in under 5s, but handwashing at every critical timecould mean up to 20 times a day to a woman who has a fully tasked day and little wateravailable - especially during the dry season! Promoting handwashing at one or two criticaltimes may be more appropriate and still be effective in reducing the incidence of illness.Careful monitoring of practices and the overall programme will tell.The project is quite complex with its many levels of stakeholders, from its partneringgovernment agency, smaller ‘meso’ level partnering organisations down to the communitylevel of project participants and beneficiaries. This enhances both challenges to the projectin terms of appropriate stakeholder involvement to the successes of working at variouslevels, combining experience and ideas for a shared cause and actually meetingmilestones or achieving project targets in a timely fashion.This Case Study was an Email contribution to the E-Conference on the HygieneImprovement Framework by Jane Iredale Health & Hygiene Advisor NORWASP. Email:janeired@autobahn.mb.caNiger 1: Comparing two different promotion strategiesTopics: Impact of hygiene promotionIn the hygiene and sanitation programme of the rural water supply project in thedepartment of Dosso, Niger, outputs of the regular promotion programme were comparedwith those of a pilot project in community managed sanitation and hygiene. The first groupIRC International Water and Sanitation Centre 35