UNICEF launches groundbreaking cholera toolkit

To tackle the alarming resurgence of cholera, UNICEF has launched a new comprehensive Cholera Toolkit on 15 May 2013.

The toolkit launch [...] will be the culmination of a thorough review of existing guidance and global consultation with UNICEF at all levels and from all divisions in Africa, along with main partners in the fight against cholera, such as the World Health Organization as the lead agency.

There are 3-5 million cholera cases each year, killing 100,000 to 120,000 people, half of whom are children under 5 years old. Only 5-10% of cases are reported. In Western and Central Africa, there were more than 80,000 cases of cholera in 2012 resulting in nearly 1,500 deaths.

The Toolkit provides the health and WASH sectors an integrated approach to cholera prevention, preparedness and response. In addition it includes specific content linked to education, nutrition, communication for development (C4D), child protection and other relevant sectors.

UNICEF Cholera Kit, p. 41

“What the toolkit does is harvest the best and most up-to-date knowledge in the field and brings it together in one location,” said UNICEF Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Sanjay Wijesekera. “It looks at the evidence. It looks at practices that have produced results.”

Download the Toolkit at: www.unicef.org/cholera

Related websites:

• WHO – Cholera
• CDC – Cholera
• MSF Field Research – Cholera

Source: UNICEF, 15 May 2013

 

 

May #MENSTRAVAGANZA – WASH United’s menstrual hygiene campaign

“If women can have moustaches we can all talk about menstruation”. With this message WASH United kicked off May MENSTRAVAGANZA, a 28-day campaign to raise awareness and break the silence around menstruation and menstrual hygiene.

Messages are posted on the campaign website:
wash-united-may-menstravaganza.tumblr.com and
on Twitter using hashtag #MENSTRAVAGANZA

Sanitation promotion history: US New Deal posters

Posted created in 1940 by John Buczak for the US Federal Art Project. Collection Library of Congress

During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the US Government launched a series of economic programmes collectively known as the New Deal. The largest  of these programmes, run by WPA, the Works Progress Administration (renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration), employed millions of unemployed people to carry out public works projects. Most famous was the WPA Federal Art Project (FAP) that employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects.

The FAP created over 200,000 separate works including 2,000 posters. Shown  here are several posters promoting sanitation and hygiene from the WPA poster collection of the Library of Congress.

100 issues of the WASHplus Weekly – March 2011 to May 4, 2013

Below are links to the past 100 issues of the WASHplus Weekly on various sanitation and other topics. We welcome suggestions on how to make the Weekly more useful.

2013

• May 4: Water & Food Security
• Apr 26: Focus on Cookstoves & the Environment
• Apr 19: Focus on Handwashing
• Apr 12: Focus on Financing WASH Services
• Apr 5:  Focus on Urban Sanitation
• Mar 29: Focus on Household Air Pollution
• Mar 21: Focus on World Water Day 2013
• Mar 15: Focus on WASH Sustainability
• Mar 8: Focus on Gender Issues
• Feb 22: Focus on Sanitation Marketing
• Feb 15: Focus on Household Water Treatment & Safe Storage
• Feb 8: Focus on Neglected Tropical Diseases
• Feb 1: Focus on Cookstove Stacking
• Jan 25: Focus on WASH & Maternal Health
• Jan 18: Focus on Post-2015 MDG Goals
• Jan 11: Focus on WASH and Environmental Conservation

2012

• Dec 21: Focus on HAP & the Global Burden of Disease
• Dec 14: Focus on Community-Led Total Sanitation
• Dec 7: Focus on Water Kiosks
• Nov 30: Focus on Fecal Sludge Management
• Nov 16: Focus on World Toilet Day 2012
• Nov 9: Focus on World Pneumonia Day 2012
• Nov 2: Focus on Water Conflicts
• Oct 26: Focus on Climate Change
• Oct 19: Focus on Waste Pickers
• Oct 12: Focus on Global Handwashing Day 2012
• Oct 5: Focus on Water Technologies
• Sept 28: Focus on WASH & Household Energy Entrepreneurs
• Sept 14: Focus on Household Water Treatment & Safe Storage
• Sept 7: Focus on WASH & Child Survival

Save Lives, Clean your Hands – BRAC video

The BRAC WASH programme in Bangladesh has produced a new handwashing promotion video. It shows slides of handwashing promotion sessions for different groups (children, adolescent girls, women, men), as well as for schools, village WASH committees and mosques (imams).

The video was released on 5 May to coincide with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) annual global campaign  to promote better hand hygiene in health care.

 

 

UNICEF/Malawi: CLTS Triggering Tools: How to Trigger for Hand Washing with Soap

UNICEF/Malawi: CLTS Triggering Tools: How to Trigger for Hand Washing with Soap, March 2013.

• Link to full-text, pdf

An Excerpt: The tools outlined by this document were developed based on actual field research in testing, done as a collaborative effort between UNICEF and Salima District Council. Salima was selected for the research and testing of new hand washing triggering tools because they already had experience attempting to incorporate hand washing into their triggering process, and also have data showing high numbers of new hand washing facilities being built after CLTS. Also, Salima was selected because they implement CLTS continuously as part of their routine extension staff work.

Nine different tools were tested for how well they instilled a realization of the importance of hand washing with soap (HWWS). When these tools were used, hand washing practice increased by 69% and soap availability at hand washing facilities increased by 15%, compared to when CLTS didn’t include specific
tools to trigger HWWS. However please take these guidelines with a grain of salt, as they are based on a small sample size, overall only a few villages.

THE 10 FIELD-TESTED HAND WASHING TRIGGERING TOOLS OUTLINED IN THIS DOCUMENT:

• Anal Cleansing Materials
• Shit and Shake
• Cassava/Egg Demonstration
• Charcoal
• Smelly Hands
• Charcoal Smearing
• Scratch & Smell
• Wall Contamination
• Food Sharing
• Dirt Under Fingernails

May 8, 2013 Webinar – Removing Barriers to WASH by the RWSN equity and inclusion group

The RWSN equity and inclusion group is pleased to announce its latest webinar on Removing Barriers to WASH. If you would like to attend, please inform ShamilaJansz@wateraid.org. For more details, see below:  

Description: WEDC and WaterAid have developed a new set of ‘Equity and Inclusion in WASH’ learning materials.

We have been collaborating to develop practical training materials for WASH practitioners, to help them analyse and address the problems faced by the most disadvantaged people in accessing WASH services. Extensively field-tested by WaterAid and WEDC in Africa and Asia, the materials are participatory and interactive, and are ideal to facilitate practical collaboration and problem-solving between disabled people and technical service providers. They can be used as stand-alone activities, or as part of a broader training programme. Although rooted in the social model of disability, the scope of the analysis framework has been broadened to encompass exclusion of all kinds. This makes the materials useful in building alliances with groups working on other issues, e.g. gender, HIV, ageing.

WASHplus Weekly: A Handwashing Update

Issue 97 | April 19, 2013 | A Hand Washing Update

The Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing with Soap (PPPHW) gave WASHplus permission to share this summary of recent hand washing literature that was recently prepared for the partnership. It includes 13 studies published in 2012 and one published in 2013. In one such study the authors suggest that hand washing promotion could improve child well‐being and societal productivity. According to the literature review, very little has been published in peer‐reviewed journals on motivators and barriers to hand washing behavior and the impact of hand washing promotion in humanitarian emergency settings. Links are provided to the abstracts or full text of articles in the citations section. 

Periodic Overview of Hand Washing Literature: Summary of Selected Peer‐Reviewed and Grey Literature Published July–December 2012. 

Prepared for the PPPHW by: Jelena Vujcic (University at Buffalo), Pavani K. Ram (University at Buffalo), Dan Campbell (CARE), and Katie Carroll (FHI 360).

RISK FACTORS AND DIARRHEAL DISEASE PREVALENCE

• A systematic review of cohort studies that reported diarrhea incidence in low- and middle-income countries showed that diarrhea incidence rates are declining slightly (1.9 billion episodes of childhood diarrhea in 1990 compared to almost 1.7 billion episodes in 2010), but the total burden on child health is still large (Fischer Walker et al. 2012).
• One study in Tanzania found that hands and water are important sources of both viral and bacterial pathogens that cause diarrhea, underscoring the importance of efforts to promote hand washing (Mattioli et al. 2012).

Takeaway for implementers:

• The burden of diarrheal disease among children is still unacceptably high in low- and middle-income countries.
• Hands are an important vector of diarrheal pathogens.

WSP Launches Handwashing with Soap Toolkit

Improving handwashing with soap practices can save children’s lives by reducing preventable diseases like diarrhea and acute respiratory infections. Despite its effectiveness in reducing disease, handwashing with soap is uncommon in many countries.

The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) conducted research with local partners in Peru, Senegal, Tanzania, and Vietnam to understand the factors that affect an individual’s decision to practice handwashing with soap.  The research informed the implementation of handwashing project activities in the four countries. 

Following national and local government implementation, WSP and its partners gathered valuable lessons, which inform this handwashing with soap toolkit. The toolkit, intended for practitioners interested in behavior change, is organized into four modules, each with reports and presentations about the lessons learned from the projects, as well as mass media, direct consumer contact, and interpersonal communication tools used throughout the project.

• Toolkit Link

Clean the World Adds 2 New Board Members

Clean the World Adds 2 New Board Members: Laura Schwartz and Kelly Cohen to Help Promote Life-Saving Mission | Source: Marketwatch, April 2, 2013 |

ORLANDO, Fla., Apr 02, 2013 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Clean the World announces the appointment of former White House director of events Laura Schwartz and government relations consultant Kelly Cohen to the non-profit’s board of directors. The organization helps save lives around the world by collecting and recycling soap and shampoo products discarded by the hospitality industry. 

Schwartz produced more than 1,000 events as the White House director of events for the Clinton administration, and is now a professional speaker, television commentator and author of the best seller Eat, Drink & Succeed. She appears on screens and stages all over the world motivating people to succeed both professionally and personally.

“I am inspired by the staff, volunteers and partners of Clean the World who truly are saving lives and revolutionizing hygiene at home and abroad,” Schwartz said. “It is an honor to be part of Clean the World’s critical mission, which has distributed more than 12 million bars of soap in over 65 countries, and diverted more than 750 tons of landfill waste in the U.S. alone.”