Integrated Sanitation and Hygiene Management in Residential Institutes in Medak District
Ms. Vanitha Kommu and Ms Indira Prakash work in CEE Andhra
Pradesh office. Their experience in water and sanitation, natural resource
management, nature education and awareness generation has played a key role in
this programme.
Hygiene and Sanitation
Facilities in Student Hostels
The Govt of
Andhra Pradesh has started a large number of social welfare hostels for stay
and studies of children of economically weaker section. At present there are
2356 Social Welfare Hostels (1691 for Boys and 665 for Girls) functioning in
the State with a sanctioned
strength of 2,36,600 including Ananda Nilayams and Children Homes etc1. Each hostel
has one Hostel Welfare Officer (HWO), Cook, Kamati (cleaner) and Watchmen. The
sanctioned strength of each hostel is 100. Health care
and healthy environment at these hostels is of utmost importance as the
children are in a period of physical growth and need an optimum health and
nutrition care. However provision of adequate water and sanitation facilities
has been a problem due to various reasons like lack of space, water scarcity,
inadequate cooperation from local governing bodies, vandalism, no operation and
maintenance staff, no funding etc.
These
problems occur in schools as well. This means that these studentsare constantly
exposed to unhygienic environment during their formative years. A survey among
school children in India revealed that about half ofthe ailments are related to
unsanitary conditions and lack of personal hygiene. Childhood is the best time
for a person to acquire hygiene behavior. However lack of education on Water
and Sanitation and the sanitary condition of many rural schools is a major
stumbling block to formation of hygiene practices among children.
An Initiative for
Improvement
The
Integrated Sanitation and Hygiene Management (ISHM) programme in Residential
Institutions (RI) was initiated by the District Administration, Medak with
support from UNICEF, considering the general status and importance of these
aspects in the hostels. CEE Andhra Pradesh office provided the implementation
support in coordination with Medak District Voluntary Agencies Network
(MEDVAN).The programme had the following components:
Participatory Survey of
Hygiene and Sanitation Facilities in Hostels- Assessment of the status of WATSAN facilities in 230 RIs and development of action plans along with budget estimation.
- Training residential institution (RI) staff on hygiene, water, sanitationoperation and maintenance (O&M) and conducting educational activities with the students for behavioral changes.
- Facilitating the implementation of action plans through UNICEF with concerned line departments
- Identification of 6 RI in each category to establish model sanitation complexes.
Participatory
surveys were conducted to identify infrastructural gaps in water and sanitation
facilities and behavioral aspects among children
pertaining to personal hygiene.
The survey was carried out in all 230 hostels while they were closed for summer
holidays. 46 Mandal Coordinators (MCs) (working with MEDVAN) having more than
one year experience in water and sanitation field were selected and further
trained by CEE on the concept on Integrated Sanitation and Hygiene Management in RIs.  |
The provision of water and sanitation facilities
have
been inadequate in social welfare hostels
due to various
reasons like lack of space,
water scarcity, lack of cooperation from local
governing bodies, vandalism, theft, funding etc.
|
Assessment for identifying the issues and facilitating actions
The survey
was conducted in a participatory way involving the children and hostel staff
(warden, cook, kamati, watchmen etc). While provision of WATSAN infrastructure in the hostels is one main objective,
it is also important to understand the child friendly/unfriendly nature of
existing facilities or the facilities that are planned to provide. For this reasons children were involved in
identifying the issues and needs. This happened in the form of discussions and
visits to the facilities with children. Many of these children in hostels are first generation toilet
users and hence it is important to make them understand first what are basic
facilities required and what kind of improvement is possible. These inputs are
provided by MCs to the children during the assessment itself.
The
investigation revealed that the infrastructure facilities for water and
sanitation are insufficient and there are several functional problems
associated with these like running water inside the bathroom, electrification
inside the toilets, repairs of taps, bathrooms, floors, doors, septic tanks,
proper ventilation, periodic cleaning of septic tanks etc.
It was also
found that hostels had to depend on water supply from outside sources. So there
was a need to provide water facilities/storage tanks where absent or inadequate.
A few places required repair of bore well motors and water purifiers for safe
drinking water.
Once these
gaps were found and findings analyzed, hostel-wise action plans were developed.
The overall status and the infrastructure gaps and needs were presented to
UNICEF and the District Administration.
District Administration Fills
Infrastructure Gaps
The
District Administration responded by following two strategies to address the
infrastructural issues.
- It invited local industries to provide the facilities as part of their CSR by adopting the hostels or through monetary contributions.
- Pooling the fund from the Government Departments, and addressing some of the issues with their help.
 |
It is important to understand whether
existing or planned
facilities are child friendly
or not. Trained mandal coorindinators
interacted with children to identify their
concerns and needs.
|
Workshops
for Students and Staff on Personal Hygiene and Sanitation Management: In
addition to provision of infrastructure, it was also essential to ensure the
continued use and maintenance of the provided facilities. Bimonthly awareness
workshops were designed and 16 MCs were trained to conduct these, preferably in
the evening times or during holidays. Each workshop had a specific theme with a
set of activities and games. These were
Workshop 1: Personal Hygiene
Workshop II: Hand washing, making soap
Workshop III: Water and Sanitation
Workshop IV: Waste management and Operation and Maintenance
Workshop II: Hand washing, making soap
Workshop III: Water and Sanitation
Workshop IV: Waste management and Operation and Maintenance
Relevant
resource material was made available to each MC based on the activities/ games
developed in the manual. The workshops were designed interactively and followed
by visits to capture the impact among the children.
Review and Monitoring
CEE
monitored 105 hostels (45%) to check the impact of the awareness programmes and
provision of facilities. Every month 20 to 25 hostels were visited to
- Interact with the children to understand their awareness levels and observing the best practices in sanitation and hygiene
- Interact with Kamaties/cook/watch women etc on changes in operation and maintenance
- Interact with the HWOs on overall improvement of facilities and management
Besides
this, review meetings were organized by CEE at regular intervals to check the
progress, provide feedback to MCs and to understand the need to improve,
include new aspects etc.
Rank cards
A rank
card system was introduced to help the hostels, MCs and departments understand
the progress made in terms of infrastructure provision and sustainable use.
Rank cards consisted of baseline information about different aspects like
facilities available, usage, facilities maintenance and personal hygiene
practices among the children etc. Against these, marks were expected to be
given every month based on improvement of the situation. Based on the marks,
grading was done as Green (100-80 Marks), Organe (80-60 Marks) and Red (60-10
Marks). Mostly the hotels were found to be in Orange colour.
Bio intensive vegetable gardens
 |
| Keeping in mind the nutrition needs of students in welfare hostels, organic vegetable gardens were promoted in the hostels and schools where land and other facilities were available. |
All 230
hostels were provided with a garden kit to facilitate farming in the hostel
premises. The kit contained 13 varieties of vegetable seeds, one spray bottle,
vermicompost and neem oil. Children were involved right from the garden
initiation stage and they participated actively in watering, weeding, providing
fencing, etc. Depending on the various factors like rented hostels,
insufficient water supply, heavy rains, no guard against cattle etc gardens
could be maintained in 53 hostels.
Best hostel award
Every month
marks on rank card (placed in the hostels) based on the actions taken in
addressing infrastructural issues in the hostels, O&M of the facilities and
best practices followed by the students (behavioral change) by the MCs and HWO.
The hostel with maximum score at end of a year gets the ‘Best Hostel Award’,
that includes a Trophy and certificate along with cash prize of Rs 5000/-. This
cash award money is planned to be spent for repair of leaking taps, tanks,
pipes, etc, purchase of bolts, doors repairs or replacement, electric wiring
repairs, window mesh, etc or purchase like storage facilities, toilets cleaning
material.
For more information contact:
CEE Andhra
Pradesh
Door No
6-3-348/2
Dwarakapuri
Colony, Panjagutta
Hyderabad –
500082
Ph: 040 –
23352596, 65883100
Email:
ceeandhrapradesh@ceeindia.org
Materials developed under
the programme:
A manual was developed with basic information
of each topic with activities for easy understanding of the personal Hygiene,
Water, Sanitation and Menstrual hygiene was developed for the mandal
coordinators.
Neeru
paarishyuddam vyaktigatha parisubratha: Activities based manual is developed on themes ‘personal hygiene,
water and sanitation for trainers.
Take it easy: Hand out on hygiene habits during menstrual cycle developed for
girl children and distributed to all girls.
Sharing simple
facts: Myths and facts about
menstrual cycle and hygiene practices developed for girl child.
Hayeega
Arogyamuga: Comic book developed on
personal hygiene and sanitation for both boys and girls.
1 Right to Information, sourced at
http://tinyurl.com/Social-Welfare-Hostels, accessed on 20th November 2010.
All photograph Courtesy: CEE Andhra Pradesh
