Trip Report: WASH programme in SNNPR (Kedida Gamela and Kindo Koisha woredas) (July 03-08, 2012)

1.          Introduction

This is a report on a field visit to water, sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programme of Kedida Gamela (Zato Shodera and Adelo kebeles) and Kindo Koisha (Sere Fincha and Dada Kare kebeles) woredas. My trip was planned in order to have a concrete awareness on what actually UNICEF is doing. It is important to be on site and see the activities at the place, Also to monitor the full WASH package in the selected woredas (to monitor health facilities and schools if they have improved / new gender sensitive Water point & hand washing stand designed with suitable height for women, girls and boys; separate latrine rooms for men and women) WASH facilities).

I visited the two woredas WASH sites and held a number of discussions with WASH focal persons including Health facility workers (HEWs, Nurses and Environmental health officers), TVET centers , regional and woreda level Water, Education and Health sector offices, and community members. A field visit was scheduled to visit health facilities, households and school WASH facilities.

2.         Purpose

The purpose of this field trip is to have a full picture on whether the health facilities and schools (primary schools) in these woredas have improved / new gender sensitive (Water point & hand washing stand designed with suitable height for women, girls and boys; separate latrine rooms for men and women) WASH facilities and to see household toilets if they have access to hand-washing stand and soap / ash.

3.         Observations

I made the following key observations based on detailed discussions with the woreda level Water, Education and Health sector offices and site visits in the two Woredas. These all helped me to have a better understanding in WASH activities done in the rural part of Ethiopia.

3.1     School WASH activities

In the two woredas that I have visited, all the schools have physically separated toilets for girls, boys and for teachers (even if majority was not clean), except for one school in which teachers and boy students share the toilet and all the schools have hand washing facility made from local materials but almost all are not functional or doesn`t have water and even if some has water it is rather dirty; also there was no soap or ash available at the time of visit.

Fig 1. Hand washing facility at Zato shodera primary school (Kedida Gamela woreda).

In school WASH program there is hygiene and sanitation club, which focus on hygiene and sanitation issues. This club does blind supervision to monitor hand washing behavior among all students and provide soap for those students, who regularly wash their hands. And there is a girls club, which work on female students, this club monitor attendance of girl students and work with teachers in the provision of sanitary pads and hot water in menstruation room, a room in which girl students change their clothes during menstruation, so that they will not drop out school due to this reason because if she went home without cleaning the cloth her parents might complain that she was having an affair with boy students. Since the school charges the students for the sanitary pads, the girls club facilitates the way to provide the pads for free for those female students from poor families. By doing this this school be able to have many female students (talented) because there is low likely hood of drop out.

Fig 2. Girls toilet at Zato shodera primary school                                      Fig 3. Boys toilet at Dada Keri primary school (Kindo Koisha woreda)

In school WASH program there is hygiene and sanitation club, which focus on hygiene and sanitation issues. This club does blind supervision to monitor hand washing behavior among all students and provide soap for those students, who regularly wash their hands. And there is a girls club, which work on female students, this club monitor attendance of girl students and work with teachers in the provision of sanitary pads and hot water in menstruation room, a room in which girl students change their clothes during menstruation, so that they will not drop out school due to this reason because if she went home without cleaning the cloth her parents might complain that she was having an affair with boy students. Since the school charges the students for the sanitary pads, the girls club facilitates the way to provide the pads for free for those female students from poor families. By doing this this school be able to have many female students (talented) because there is low likely hood of drop out.

Challenges

The school is doing a great job so to make this activity sustainable they need to get some kind of support, either financial or material (provision of pads).

Recommendation

It will be good if the woreda Education bureau facilitate experience sharing session, with other schools within the woreda and between woredas on the activities done in Zato Shodera School.

3.2    Household WASH facility

I visited two woredas and tried to see over all WASH activities of one ODF and one non ODF kebeles in each woreda. Based on the report from the Woreda Water bureau, In Kindo Koisha woreda the ODF kebele have much lower water coverage (27.9%) than the non ODF kebele (83.1%), which shows that even If the kebele is ODF it has water shortage, so that the work done is not be complete and the ODF status will not be sustainable because if there is no water people might not want to use the toilet because they don`t have enough water to clean the toilet so they prefer to defecate on the field.

Fig 4. Household latrine (Kindo Koisha

Woreda)                                                          Fig 5. Household water storage (Kedida Gamela Woreda)

3.3.   Collaboration between sectors

In education sector they express their coordination as they contact the respective sectors for task which they think is responsible, for example when they want to build latrine they consult health bureau to dig latrine and they consult water bureau for water supply. And also for the hygiene and sanitation clubs in the schools they got educational support from Health sectors (from HEWs, Health staffs, Woreda health office).

The collaboration of woreda administration with health is that they work on ODF by mobilizing the community to accept the education. And their collaboration with education is to work on sanitation and hygiene to teach students so that they will change the attitude of their community members after they changed theirs.

The water bureau explain their collaboration with the two sectors as, for example from the education sector the schools might consult them to build latrine by the allocated budget for latrine construction in the school, so water bureau will prepare a proposal. For health the water sector will do water supply for health facilities. But in case of sanitation the health sector do it by themselves and the education do it in relation with health.

3.4.   Health facility WASH

In health facilities, as I tried to visit 3 HP and 2 Health Centers, all have toilet facilities and the toilet in health centers are separated for patients and health staffs (it doesn`t have a sign to show which one is for male and which is for female) but in case of health posts it is not separated at all.

In terms of gray water harvesting I didn`t see any, either at the institution or at house hold level. 

One health center among the two which was visited, they harvest rain water and use it for different activities except for drinking.

Fig 5. Rain water harvesting in Adelo health center (Kedida Gamela woreda)

3.5.   TVET and WASH activities

In Sodo TVET they have HE department and they are doing well in WASH activities with the support of UNICEF. They give training for the community in hygiene and sanitation, how to handle water, water scheme sanitation, CLTS and financing water. They also planned to give trainings on household water treatment (solar disinfection, tulip water filter)and they have a project to do homemade sand filter and dust bin (pedal type) and show for the community but as the HE department head, Amare Birhanu, mentioned they have budget release delays.

Challenges

• Budget constraint.
• Budget release delays (but the expiration is fixed) so some activities message will be distorted.
• The fund that TVET or other sectors get from UNICEF come through government, but it will be good if it is directly reaches to the target.
• Transportation problem (lack of vehicle, motorcycle) in different WASH sectors to monitor WASH activities.
• In TVET, the difficulty of finding female teachers and also female students do not apply for water department and there is a wrong thought that women cannot perform well schools.

3.6.   Quality of WASH services

As I observed different WASH facilities in schools, health facilities and household, majority have poor quality. For example if we take the latrines and hand washing facilities they are made by local materials, so their sustainability is questionable specially those at household level, it will be better if we upgrade the facilities using sanitation marketing. In case of the sanitation of the toilets, especially those at institution level are not cleaned and the hand washing facilities are out of use because of poor material and some haven`t water. All the households, schools and health facilities visited didn`t provide soap/ash.  

Fig 6. Household latrine, in which the roof is blown away by the wind. (Kind Koisha Woreda)

CHALLENGES:

• Lack of commitment at the sector level (Health, Education and Water)
• Political engagement of sector chief administrators, they might leave the office for 2-3 months for tax collection so they do not have a time to motivate the work and also majorities do not have a capacity.
• Permanent awareness creation is a challenge in CLTS (it is not a short term result 2-3 years needed to have ODF kebeles)
• Since majority of the activities in WASH dealt with behavioral trait it is difficult to get attitudinal change within a short time.
• Sometimes, especially in health facilities even if the toilet facility is there they might lock it so that it will not be accessible for users.
• Budget constraint.
• No provision of sanitary pads from donors in school and soap in institutional level.
• Poor participation of women in WASH due to their household responsibility (taking care of children, cooking and house hold works).
• Lack of awareness among women.
• Inadequate water supply (for health facilities, schools as well as for the community)

OPPORTUNITIES:

For ODF sustainability the presence of community conversation, House Hold visits by HEWs, School WASH   clubs (students) and community motivation are the opportunities that we can transfer messages, health education to the community members; in case of school WASH clubs, in the first place schools are the best place to work on new ideas and to bring the needed behavioral change of the community members because children are always ready to learn new things and they can easily accept if we teach them so they help us by being an  intermediate they can convince their parents and the community members. It is easy to transfer messages (perform activities) in relation to WASH through the school WASH clubs. 

For gender mainstreaming in WASH, the presence of gender sections in each sectors (Health, Education and Water). It is good to have the structure it only needs making it functional. The other opportunity is participation of girls in hygiene and sanitation clubs, women in WASHCO

Presence of public latrines, which has an impact for having ODF environment is another opportunity.

RECOMMENDATION

• In CLTS the government is simply counting the ODF kebeles and want to declare the woreda and then the whole nation, but since CLTS needs behavioral changes it takes time to  get the quality than relying on quantity or simple counting,
• It is a good starting to have women members in WASHCO but it would have been best if they have decision making role or being a leader rather than being only a member.
• When it comes to punishment for defecating on the field, rather than putting high amount of money as a punishment and not enforces it is better to lower the amount and enforce it.
• As most of the schools do putting guards as a responsible person for cleaning the toilet it is good to have a separate cleaner, so that it will not be difficult to perform the specific task.
• More works should be done to educate the community in gray water harvesting.
• Even if every households have latrine it doesn`t seem sustainable so helping them to upgrade it using sanitation marketing will be good.