Featured Project: Health and Hygiene in Zombo District

Water School has been teaching SODIS and health and hygiene practices in Zombo District, Uganda. Recently we checked back to see how the program has been affecting locals.

“I learned how diseases spread and how to keep things clean.” says Charles Bichala , who now teaches other people in Nyarka village better hygiene practices.

Hygiene and Sanitation

Proper hygiene and sanitation practices are minimal in rural Uganda and poor hygiene poses a serious threat to people’s health and safety.

To reduce the risk of disease and increase awareness of the importance of good hygiene, Water School helped train 631 men and women in safe hygiene practices in Zeu sub-county. The trainees learned about how diseases are transmitted and how hand-washing, safe food preparation and proper waste disposal all help prevent disease. Upon returning home, each trainee taught set a goal of teaching 5 to 10 families what they had learned.

A Community Response

The men and women who attended the workshop said the knowledge was critical to improving hygiene in their communities. The campaign increased hygiene awareness among the direct recipients and the general public not directly impacted by the program. “We were not aware of many of these things before the training,” said Innocent Pirimba, a beneficiary from Warr village. Owere Mungu Samuel from the same village concurred. “I used to eat vegetables without washing them,” she said. Now a trained hygiene activist, Samuel taught five neighbors in her community to clean raw food and safely dispose of garbage.

The communities in and around Zeu have taken ownership of the Water School health and hygiene program by maintaining their commitment to spread the practices to their neighbors, family and friends. Many of the residents have done an amazing job implementing the Water School health and hygiene program and it is plain to see that this is a community that is excited about their new tools.

Promoting health and hygiene is just one part of the Water School program, but it’s an extremely important one. Without health and hygiene training, the positive effects of clean water can often be diluted or even entirely negated.

The Zeu health and hygiene awareness campaign shines through as an example of how a community can embrace Water School programs and make them their own. We’re tremendously proud to have been a part of that process.