Plan International, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council The importance of profiling hygiene both for its intrinsic value and also for promotion of sanitation, with particular attention to the needs in Schools and for girl children SACOSAN IV

Why hygiene is important?  Improved Sanitation: one that hygienically separates human excreta from human contact (JMP)  Hygiene practices: all preventative measures to cut the faecal chain  For health gains – safe disposal of human waste is only half the battle – hygiene is the essential second half. WSSCC Definition of sanitation: ‘collection, transport, treatment and disposal or reuse of human excreta, domestic waste water and solid waste, and associated hygiene promotion.

School Sanitation in South Asia  Many schools have no toilets  Those that do – toilets are too few, locked, unclean, or without water  School toilets are no ones responsibility  Hand washing with soap after toilet use is very low  Cleaning practices involving students reproduce societal discrimination around caste, gender and age.  Excellent School WASH projects----many islands of excellence but a huge challenge if we are to scale up across South Asia. UNICEF (2010): Equity in School WASH, Overcoming exclusion and discrimination in South Asia. Regional synthesis

Minimum Standards: Hygiene & the School Environment 1. Hygiene education included in school curriculum 2. Positive hygiene behaviours promoted 3. Facilities and resources help students and teachers to practice hygiene and stop spread of diseases 4. Regular cleaning and waste disposal: clean school 5. Food storage and preparation is safe and hygienic to minimise disease transmission WHO (2009): Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Standards in Low-cost Settings

Practice level? Literacy, knowledge levelPractise  We monitor infrastructure not habit  Incorporation of Hygiene aspects to national policies and guidelines allowing integration  Small number of women decision makers  We do not involve users enough  Poor life skills and cultural factors prevent children and women from participating

The experience of PLAN  Participatory surveys/ situation analysis  Community triggering targeting total sanitation  Child-led Hygiene promotion activities  Latrine construction monitoring  Child-led research  Child-led advocacy for policy development When children participate we have a better chance of changing habits

Plan International, Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council Lets pay particular attention to the needs of adolescent girls in schools. SACOSAN IV

8 Discrimination Poverty Poor results Negative Experiences in School Sociocultural beliefs Cost Peer Relations Why Girls do not stay or learn in school ?

 8 9 % experienced some form of restriction  68 % excluded from religious activities  53% in Bangladesh absent from school due to menstruation  41% lack of privacy for washing and cleaning. Main reason for being absent  Only 42% reported an adequate toilet at school with privacy for changing and 55 % at home  85% reported abdominal pain, 8 % excessive bleeding and 5% breast pain Lets listen to girls. SACOSAN IV

All adolescent girls admitted that they missed school when they had their menstrual periods and took the help of other students to catch up. They also said that they do not sit next to or touch a girl when she has her period. 68% of girls stay at home for 5 days a month or 50 days a year Its a big issue for us! 10

We now have some examples across SA…. Disposal facilities Tamil Nadu, India 11 Sanitation blocks, Dhaka, Bangladesh

It can been done…. Now lets take it to scale The government is all set to construct girl-friendly toilets in 5500 community schools throughout the country. The government has allocated Rs. 1.1 billion [US$ 15 million] for the purpose DelhiDelhi government will soon make available sanitary napkins free of cost to girl students from poor families in all schools run by it to ensure that their attendance do not suffer due to hygiene-related issues. Dept of Rural Development Tamil Nadu have installed Incinerators in 33 girls’ toilets in schools in the State. NEPALINDIA 12 Unicef

Where are we today  We are talking about it  We are also doing something about it……  We must go further  -Make it an essential part of household and institutional sanitation & hygiene  Link it to reproductive health, education and life skills development  Include this in our commitments for the region as a whole

An appeal and a call for action  Break the silence  Look beyond toilets and soap  Ask women and girls and plan with and for them  Redefine basic sanitation to include their needs. 14