Hygiene Promotion - IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre

mothers’ scarce time and energy and the family’s resources. Mothers were interested inhygiene education. They wanted short sessions and information materials in their ownlanguage and Spanish. Approval from fathers was crucial because they objected to higherwater bills. The project introduced a ‘happy corner’ for handwashing in the home andspread information to mothers on proper ways of washing hands. Fathers and children hadtheir own messages to reinforce the desired behaviours (Booth & Hurtado, 1992).In a second campaign, a catalyst (in this case a bilateral project) brought together thegovernments (which wanted to reduce diarrhoeas) with the private sector (the soapcompanies) in five countries. The campaign promoted proper practices (1: washing bothhands 2: with soap 3: rubbing at least three times 4: dry with a clean towel) at critical times(1: before food preparation 2: before eating 3: after toilet use 4: after cleaning babies’bottoms). Targeted were mothers in rural areas with low levels of education and socioeconomicstatus having children under five and primary schoolchildren from these families.Radio and television spots were the main media. In the evaluation, one in every threepeople could recall the campaign. This was less for rural and indigenous groups. In thebefore-after study in Guatemala, with an estimated outreach to 1.5 million children alone,the ability to mention all critical times and demonstrate the four proper practices increasedby 10%, especially in urban areas. Again, a ‘dedicated place’ for handwashing supportedgood practice. Changes in the other countries were more modest.Saadé, Camille, Bateman, Massee, Bendahmane, Diane B. (2001). The story of asuccessful public-private partnership in Central America: Handwashing for diarrhealdisease prevention. Arlington, BASICS, EHP, UNICEF, USAID and World Bank.http://www.basics.org/publications/pubs/Handwashing/handwashing%20frontmatter.PDFNicaragua 1: Use of the Hygiene Improvement Framework in disaster reliefTopics: HIF; Social marketing; trainingAfter Hurricane Mitch, EHP managed rehabilitation work in Nicaragua, focusing on watersupply, sanitation and environmental health. This was a two-year project and ended inDecember 2001. This project used the HIF conceptual framework as a basis for managingthe reconstruction (and in some cases new construction) of systems damaged byHurricane Mitch; the principal components were:• Access to hardware: construction of 2,692 water supply schemes; 7,226 householdlatrines and 3,503 environmental projects (drainage, solid waste management etc.).These projects were executed by seven NGOs and based on the concept ofcommunity participation and management.• Hygiene promotion: hygiene education and the promotion of positive behaviourchanges were incorporated as integral aspects of all activities at project level.Promotion and mobilisation was done through two principal mechanisms:o by the training and equipping of dedicated community members (as part of thewater committee) and44 Hygiene promotion