Dear all,

following our last meeting in Stockholm, it was agreed that school sanitation is one of the prioritized issues in the wg7.
I suggest to collect good stories from all over the world and to compile them in a joint publication. My suggestion would be to highlight sustainable and productive sanitation solutions benefiting the children.

Looking forward to your comments,
best regards
Claudia

I'm not sure that this is a "good" story but it is a story nonetheless that is still being written. As one model in our Gates' GCE we deployed a 5-stall Microflush-Biofil toilet system at a school in Pokuase Village in Ghana. It has been operating for about a year and being closely watched. One of many issues in school sanitation is maintenance; the older students at this primary school are organized into a small toilet army; in teams fo 2 or 3 they take turns in daily cleaning of the stalls, each of which (in the Microflush system) has a small sink for hand washing, the water from which is used to do the next flush of the toilet, which flushes on just 150 cc of that greywater.
Leaving aside the presence of effective toilet solutions at schools, there is a problem with hand washing. The Ghana Sustainable Aid Project has been deploying tippy-taps (a portable version that I and a student designed)at schools in Ga West in Ghana. These schools have limited water and no soap. The tippy-taps help conserve precious water but without soap, hand washing is like winking at a pretty woman in the dark - the intention is never appreciated. I had been thinking about this problem for quite some time when it occurred to me that there might be a solution that, under proper circumstances, could be sustainable and effective. The project is called 'Soap for Schools' and it works as follows: Hotels and guest houses often provide small bars of soap for their guests, these bars get used once or twice and are eventually thrown away - winding up flushed down a toilet or in a landfill. We have a fairly simple off-grid process that allows the soap to be disinfected and then re-emulsified, packed into small lined boxes, allowed to cure for 2-3 weeks and then cut into bars. This year, we are empowering women in a pilot set of rural communities in Ghana to do this process, creating a small business for themselves selling soap. However, they must agree to donate soap to the local public school for children's hand washing. A back-of-envelope calculation shows an enormous potential for this program on a global scale. In the US alone, raw material-used guest soaps (and shampoos) could make nearly a half billion bars of soap. Imagine the small business opportunities (especially for women), the habit of hand washing for the next generation and , of course the impacts on mortality and morbidity that we are all aware of! Even if the small enterprises paid for the shipping costs, it is only 1/6 th of what new raw materials cost. I have contacted a large international hotel company about this idea - it would be a phenomenal project for a global hotel chain. As some of you might know, Hilton (not the chain I contacted) has a program running out of Atlanta (I believe) and they recycle soaps but the processing is done in the US and finished soaps are shipped (to East Africa I believe).
I will let you know how things go during the first 6 months of the new year as we roll out the effort on a limited scale.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for getting this started, Claudia.
..Steve Mecca

Great and good to hear that u're working in Ghana. i am very interested in the WASH in schools, i would probably consider in a later date to see if i can work around it for a PHD, not decided yet.
i know in Ghana, there are a policy and program/strategy developed for SHEP. unfortunately, these documents are never made readily available to the sector or public. Since Steve, u're already working in Ghana, i would be very grateful to receive relevant documents like the policy and SHEP strategy documents if you have access to them.
best and keep on to help contribute to the SHEP program and innovative business models like this in Ghana. to me this is a great story even to start with when the successes start emerging.
....Bismark

There was a recent verdict by the Supreme Court of India to ensure basic toilet facilities for school students , in particular to girl students within the next time frame of six months. We, Eram Scientific Solutions, the manufacturers of India's first electronic toilets joined hands with Suchi@School (Sustainable Comprehensive Hygiene Initiative), an initiative led by the Member of Parliament Sri. P. Rajeev under his Suchi@School initiative to build up school infrastructure for sanitation and provision of safe water in all Government schools and Government aided schools in Ernakulam District of Kerala State, India where 107 etoilets for schools have beeen installed.
The user can enter the toilet and manually lock it from inside. Upon entering the toilet, the indoor lights will be switched on automatically.
Toilet flush can be activated using a push button switch provided in the inside of toilet. Even if the user forgets to flush after usage, the system will automatically flush after the exit. Exit from the unit is completely manual. An automatic floor cleaning mechanism is also provided through which, the floor will be cleaned automatically by pressure washing the floor. The floor cleaning can be activated either through a push switch or through remote activation.

A clean and hygienic sanitary napkin disposal system is also provided inside the toilet. An automatic incinerator will electronically dispose the napkins into ashes.
Sanitary napkin vending machine is a solution at any time for girl students/ adult women for meeting menstrual emergencies.
The group of cartoon characters depicted on the front and side panels of eToilet named “Green Army” consists of the animals and birds that keep the surroundings clean through their innate activities. The Green Army consists of Haari Crow, Puigi Cat, Pupu Mushroom, Marmmu Earthworm and Thoothan Frog. If children are brought into the development process as active participants, they can become change agents within their families and a stimulus to community development. They are eager to learn and help, and if they consider environmental care and their role in this as important, they will take care of their own regions and those of others. this project has been lauded by the academics , the student communtiy and the media for it two pronged appraoch for proviiding good sanitaiton facilities in schools.

In the interest of archiving, I copy here four more replies to Claudia's post which were received via e-mail to the Working Group 7 mailing list:

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By Ina Jurga:

Hallo Claudia

i hope you are doing well!

Unicef recently launched the "RAISING even MORE CLEAN HANDS" , where a lot of benefits are included from all over the world.
www.unicef.org/wash/schools/files/Raisin..._Web_17_October_2012(1).pdf
(but assumingly Murat will just have linked you to it

what angle could we give then the SuSana publication in addition to this ?
who is the target audience for the publication and what do we want to publication to achieve?

There are many good case studies (technology wise) already.
? show how to combine technology + school behaviour change trainings
? school-to-community promotion of susana ?
? susana school project that supports gardening & thus improve students nutrition or biogas for lightning?
? which countries have included sustainable sanitation into their school standards
? child-friendly design for disabled children design
???

i am happy to contribute, but would be good to clarify the purpose and need for a SuSana WinS publication.

Best greetings from Berlin

P:S: WASH United will present the WinS training activities from the Great WASH Yatra on 12th December 9 am NYC time.


Ina Jurga

Head of WASH in Schools - WASH United

www.wash-united.org

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By Penny Philipps-Howard:

Hi, we are also doing school WASH studies for our menstrual studies in western Kenya. I include Kelly in this correspondence also.
School-wise we see almost no soap available, and a lot of other interesting findings (we hope to publish), but happy to share to help towards the document.
Best wishes, Penny

Dr Penelope Phillips-Howard
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Pembroke Place, L3 5QA, Liverpool, UK

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By Linda Scott:

Hello, all,

I am a bit on the edge of this discussion group, so a little hesitant to weigh in. But we do have a case online about our sanitary pad study in Ghana. It is fictionalized to protect identities and situate for teaching, so may not be what you really want. But here it is:

www.doublexeconomy.com/wp-content/upload...ry-Pads-in-Ghana.pdf

There are working papers and a PlOS publication. They are all accessible on this page:

www.doublexeconomy.com/publications-proj...and-girls-education/

We have also recently done some work in east Africa testing environmentally friendly alternatives. We have not yet written this up, but I am happy to provide a topline to anyone who needs to know quickly. The test itself is described in instalments of my blog, in six more-or-less consecutive instalments, here:

www.doublexeconomy.com/2011/12/13/1032/

I do hope this is helpful and not intrusive.

Best
Linda Scott
University of Oxford

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By Camilla Wirseen:

Dear Claudia and all,

Would be great to share how our Peepoo sanitation solution works in schools
since it is a new technology and system. We have about 3500 school children
who have the Peepoo toilet available in Kibera and are scaling to about 7000
this spring.

Let me know way forward.

Camilla
Peepoople, Sweden

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(Posted by Elisabeth von Muench, community manager)

Sorry Bismark, I don't have access to or awareness of SHEP documents.

Thanks a lot Smecca for replying. Hmmm, will try looking for them as much as i can.
best