Jigme Losel Primary SchoolThimphu Bhutan

DFC project2013

Soap – A Critical Friend In Handwashing

Feel:

The use of Soap is a must while washing hands. In the beginning, the teachers observed many students having rashes on faces or fingers. There were many pre-primary (class PP-I) students suffering from diarrhoea and incidences of defecating in the classes. The performance and attendance of the students were all time low. There was no improvement in the health of the students even after taking preventive measures like insisting on drinking boiled water, clipping nails on time, proper toilet habits etc.

The introduction of Water Sanitation and Hygiene programme (WASH) through the celebration of Global Handwashing Day under UNICEF in 2008 was an eye opener for most of us. Since then, the school emphasised on the importance of the use of soap in the handwashing process.

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The use of soap in handwashing however did not serve the purposes of increasing the academic performance and the attendance of our children. The findings of our second observation was that children complained of not having enough time to wash hands as instructed during the 40 mins lunch break since there is only one tap for 850 students.

Imagine:

Lack of handwashing facilities remained still a challenge. Some students came up with ideas of reusing materials in designing taps to reach out to all the students. Since the school was already in the process of learning the 6Rs (reuse, refuse, replace, reduce, recycle and re-educating) through Waste Management programme, the ideas of designing the taps visualized.

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Do:

The school took active part in promoting the WASH programme in the capital city through Street Play, poster designing, and art work. Many students take part in Global Handwashing Day celebration and have been winning the competitions so far. In doing so the students came up with the idea of designing Tippy Taps reaching every single child of the school. The students drew and painted their Tippy Taps with traditional Bhutanese art. The attractive art work on the Tippy Taps strengthened the handwashing programme as a daily ritual and developed the sense of ownership.

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Students take turns to bring soap and fill their Tippy Taps every morning. Now the Tippy Taps are queued in front of their classes with enough soaps. Later to emphasize the right ways of handwashing using soap, the class captains volunteered to keep a record on daily basis.

The students became the change agent in spreading the importance of handwashing with soap even at home. The agent increased the donation of soaps from the parents and the community. The health and hygiene of the students drastically improved and the school was selected as the Focal School for Wash programme by the UNICEF at the City Level. Since then the students and teachers have been actively involved in creating awareness. The WASH focal teacher was selected to facilitate the programme to other districts schools. She also shared the good practices of the school to other schools in the country.

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Share:

The students then came to know how some of the remote schools do not have enough soaps and taps through the WASH focal teacher. In 2012, the students under the guidance of the focal teacher formed a group to collect soaps for the sister schools.

Ourpartnership with Design for Change (DFC) gave us better ideas to reach out to the remote schools. Now the DFC group is well ahead with the plan and is focused on the project. The group has already sent two cartons of soaps each to two remote schools.

At the moment the group is working on sustainability of the project as the SOAP is a CRITICAL FRIEND in HANDWASHING whether you are an adult, a kid or a teen.

By:

Tashi PemCoordinatorDFC

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