Dear Marcel,

thank you for your detailed response and we will stay in contact.

I wonder whether you can provide us with the detailed construction drawings, cutting and parts list of the Core Module either here through the Forum or directly to my email. I have seen some drawings in some manuals but none to the extend that the cutting lengths for example for the tank stand are specified. I assume all pipe and fittings are in 3/4" ?

With more than 1000 Nos. of the Core Module installed you should have enough prove by now that the tank stand is durable if produced from quality material with quality controlled workmanship. I guess we should try the design in Tanzania as well before we re-invent the wheel. I like the flexibility it allows with re-filling the tank by hand or by pipe and with the design and structure of water basin and drainage.. where I like the flower beds most... again not posh but practical

thanks and ciao, Hajo

Dear All,

very interesting to read your discussion!

I’m working for the FFS (Fit for School) program in Cambodia, where a local NGO prefabricate more than 1000 group washing facilities for around 150 schools.

The prefabricated facility leaves space for the community for participation and enhancements. Since the hardware is only one – but crucial – aspect of the whole intervention, we call the design: Core Module.

The development of the Core Module started nearly 2 years ago and we tested and assessed more than 120 Core Modules in the Philippines and Cambodia. So far no problems with the static of the ‘bucket holder’ occurred (Indeed we choose this design, since the first findings from the fields, that schools choose often challenging options to elevate the bucket).

The material costs (incl Cement, primar paint and all GI parts) are around 65 USD per Core Module – which is of course more costly than a tippy tap, but also comes with more sustainability and user friendliness. The water consumption per bore hole (1.5mm) is around 125ml per student, if the Core Module is used by 22 students at the same time. The durability of materials and reduced water consumption will have an impact of the O&M life-cycle-costs and on the implementation success.
An essential benefit of the Core Module design is the scale up readiness. The prefabricated package contains 3 posts, one water pipe system and one bucket-holder-system. The assembling and set up in schools can be done fast and only pipe wrenches are needed (what also gives chance to include the school community).

As Nicole and Christian already mentioned, the management within the school community is essential for a good implementation and regular hygiene activities. The hardware can only support this. If schools are really committed to practice hand washing on a daily base, also ‘simple’ solutions like tippy tap are efficient, but my experiences in Cambodia go in the same direction what Hajo mentioned: the people want more posh and fancy solution – not only practical solution.

Core Module Facts:

• Accommodate 22 students at 11 outlets
• gives chance for iHWWS
• Water consumption of 125ml per student for HW
• Durable GI material
• Self-contained bucket system ensures water pressure can be attached to main
• Material costs around 65 USD (Cambodia)

This blue One is the design from Laos. It does not inlcude a water supply bucket.


Attached are more pictures from a Core Module in a primary school in Phnom Penh

Dear Nicole and Christian,

Thank you very much for your elaborate explanations; they are definitely food for thought for our discussions with schools, NGO and authorities.

Interesting for me are especially the design parameters of ‘1 HW facility per classroom’ and ‘2-4 pupils per outlet’. These are important aspects.

I still like to ask you some more questions:

1 It’s about the facility where the tank stand is made of pipe material and sits on the facility: don’t you have problems with the statics and the durability of this structure? The canister when full is about 20kg which sits only on the two joints left and right of the upright pipe. I would fear it breaks easily especially when someone bumps into the structure or leans against while filling the canister.

2 How do you see the chance of acceptance of tippy-taps? My concern is that the beneficiaries will see that technique as too ‘simple, underdeveloped’ so that eventually the actual target of implementing routine, group handwashing activities will fail because of the tippy taps. Beneficiaries may want more modern, posh facilities in order to accept the activity. What do you think?

3 @Nicole: ‘In Laos parents for example came up with an adaptation of the group facility, which turned out to be a very useful design. This design is now not only used by many of the Fit model schools in Laos but in a slightly modified version also by Unicef in their new WASH programme in 400 schools.’ Can we have a picture or a description?

Thanks again everybody for contributing to the discussion,
Ciao, Hajo

Dear Hajo,

the time it takes to perform the daily group activity for all students in a school depends on different factors, like:

- number and seize of group facilities (can all children fit in one batch or do they have to do two or more rounds)
- distance between classroom and facilities (the closer the faster)
- how much of a routine children already developed (after 1-2 weeks it becomes a routine, which will automatically make it faster)

I saw schools in the Philippines with facilities that could accommodate all children at once. So a school with 500 students was able to conducted the group activity (hand washing and toothbrushing!) in less than 7 minutes!

I visited a school in Laos last week with 300 children (which is already a big school in Laos ), their facility could accommodate only about 1/3 of the students, so they had to do the activity in 3 batches. But since they were very well organized and already establishes a good routine they needed about 15-20 min until all children finalized the hand washing and toothbrushing activity.

If I understand it correctly you will focus on group hand washing only, not toothbrushing, so the group activity should actually even be less time consuming.

I noticed that the timeframe of your program is rather short (10 month), but I'm sure you will be able to establish a good routine in schools once the facilities are installed. I know that time pressure can sometimes lead to a situation where the stakeholder involvement falls a bit short, simply due to that fact that it is very time consuming… Nevertheless I can only encourage you to make sure that stakeholders from district and school level are actively (participation in meetings/trainings is often not enough from our experience, they should have at least a presentation or input, any active role) involved from the very beginning so that they develop a sense of ownership.

Let them be creative an 'localize' the approach wherever it does not compromise on the key principals (daily group activities). In Laos parents for example came up with an adaptation of the group facility, which turned out to be a very useful design. This design is now not only used by many of the Fit model schools in Laos but in a slightly modified version also by Unicef in their new WASH programme in 400 schools. They community is very proud of course and by now the district team already scaled up the programme to all schools (from 5 model schools to all 39 schools) in their district without any external support from us or other partners.

Sorry for the lengthy reply...

All the best for you and the team! I'm really curious to hear more about your programme and how it will develop.

Greetings from Manila,
Nicole

Dear Shobana,

Please find attached a low resolution version of the 'User's Guide' we use in Cambodia. We are about to update it again (new learnings occure along the way ) at the moment and I can upload the updated version as soon as it is finalized.

For the tippy taps: the schools found different solutions for refilling the tippy tap bottles. Some indeed asked children to bring water from home while others made it a daily routine for children to refill the bottles in school in the morning. I think it really depends on the situation in each school (seize of the school, location, available water sources etc.) and what they consider the most feasible in their context. Usually these aspects will be discussed in a Parent-Teacher-Association (PTA) meeting and the stakeholders should decide on this. This will at the same time increase the ownership for the programme from the beginning. Hope that helps.

Looking forward to read more about your experiences in this forum

Greetings from Manila!
Nicole

Dear Hajo,

lets me quickly answer a few of your questions. However the colleagues from the Philippines will know these things in much more detail. Let me make the case for simple tippy taps as a good and cheap entry point for group handwashing in schools:

Bottles:
- they are provided in the beginning during construction and hung permanently
- bottles are very water-efficient - a 1 litre bottle should support about 4-5 times of handwashing
- ideally each classroom should have its own handwashing stand, so you would only need to fill each bottle once a day - thus one bottle can cater for the group handwashing (one time per day) and for 2 or 3 individual handwashing times.

Re-filling:
- this is a task for the children to do as part of their daily rountines before school starts (and if necessary during lunch break) - the prefects or classroom monitors can supervise this and make it an interesting fun routine
- children will quickly learn how to manage the tippy taps as they are simple

Repair:
- there is nothing as cheap and easily available as used plastic bottles that people through away anyway and a simple string - it is basically free of cost

Project time:
- 10 months (max. of 200 school days) is sufficient time to get children into this daily habit. And various routines like daily school cleaning and similar are already practiced on a daily basis.
- Construction of tippy taps with the bottle design is simple and quick - it is almost fool proof to construct - you basically need only one horizontal pole to hang the bottles

I hope this clarifies some of your questions. What is always quite surprising to learn in the beginning, is that you have one group handwashing station per classroom and not only one for the entire school! This is making a big difference!

Cheers
Christian

Hi Christian,

I fully agree that a tippy tap is an easy way of introducing handwashing but I still doubt its practicality in a school environment. Beside the aspect of durability, I am mostly concerned about the logistics.

We are talking of min. 500 and up to 1000 pupils at a primary school who should wash their hands daily as a routine group activity (F4S approach). If we use tippy taps either the school provides the bottles filled with water or the children have each to bring their own one. Both solutions have their challenges.

If the children have to bring their own bottles
a) we have to anticipate that 30-50% will have ‘forgotten’ it on a daily average which hampers the envisaged routine affect of hand washing;
b) we have to provide installations where the children can easily and quickly hang up and remove ‘their own’ bottle when it their turn for handwashing (assuming you have designated handwash areas were collection and drainage of the wash water is cared for).
c) We can ‘forget’ about durability because children will have to care for bottle and string (but then see a. above).

If the school provides the tippy taps in designated handwash areas
a) Who will refill the bottles? Even if you have 60 to 80 HW stands, one bottle will not last for 10 children, or? If children or school staff will fill the bottles: where, how long does it take?
b) Here now durability counts because the school will have to replace broken bottles/strings.

Additional aspects to consider:
The focus of our project is to introduce sustainable routines of group handwashing, so that it is done by hundred of children at one school (we have 10 schools in the project) on a daily basis. At this seems enough challenge we have not to ‘create’ additional hurdles by letting the children provide the water.

And... unfortunately we have only 10 months for the exercise, so that an additional ‘learning’ step (of providing water on a daily basis) may not be achievable.

We look for a bit more advanced handwashing facilities which also have been developed and tested in the Philippines. ‘Thank you’ to colleagues who provide the respective literature.

@Bella/colleagues: Do you have data about the time it takes for a school to perform the daily handwashing routine (of course related to the enrolement)?

Ciao Hajo

Dear Nicole,

The presentation was very informative. Thank you! Could you please share the User Guide on Core Module for Group Washing Facilities – Assembly Instructions and Maintenance (2015) as well?

Also, in Asia, did the children bring their own water bottles for the tippy tap or was the water filled in schools?
For a school strength of 500 - 700 children, filling water bottles from say, 10- 15 taps available in the school may be time consuming.

Regards,
Shobana

Dear all,

@Christian: than ks for sharing the Fit for School 'Field Guide on Hardware for Group Handwashing in Schools"

Besides the tippy tap solution it provides some other low-cost solutions that were specifically designed to:

- accommodate groups (at least 15 children)
- can be installed in schools without water access (‘self-contained’ water storage that can be refilled manually)
- minimizes water consumption (about 150ml per child for hand washing)
- allows for community involvement

I will also attach a presentation here that was recently used in a Unicef WASH in Schools Webinar on the topic of 'Low-Cost Technology for WASH in Schools'.

And I see in this chat that some of these facilities were already contracted in Tanzania now. That's fantastic! Congratulations to the colleagues in Tanzania!!!!

From our implementation experiences with Fit for School in Asia I would say that tippy tap is of course not the most long lasting facility type BUT if there is a programme behind it (like daily hygiene activities in schools, cleaning of WASH facilities) it can serve as an entry point from which schools can start a programme (no matter if water access is available yet or not) and improve gradually from there. We often observed that tippy taps can be an entry point to make WASH a topic in schools and motivate stakeholders to advocate for better and more long lasting solutions in the medium and long term.

But like every facility it should be integral part of a concept or programme that also provides support for 'soft skills' and actual use and maintenance of facilities in schools. I think we all know too well that dropping hardware alone will not necessarily lead to the desired impact of increased hygiene activities.

Best regards,
Nicole

Dear Shobana,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the tippy taps in Schools. As far as I know from our GIZ colleagues of Fit for School, one central part of a sustainable approach to WASH in Schools is to keep children involved. So the filling of the bottles would be an important task for the kids to take up. From my experience also in Tanzania children are very happy to take on responsibilities which are simple and fun. Let me share one section of the initial appraisal report which illustrates this positive siutation:

"...It was observed during the morning routines that children had assigned roles. The teachers are handing over of responsibilities to pupils, prefects and classroom monitors (responsible for cleanliness of classrooms). In some schools teachers also set up and govern school clubs on health and environment providing children with oversight functions for cleaning activities. It was observed that children willingly and with a lot of motivation took up these responsibilities of overseeing their peers. Their selection as prefects or head pupil was based on school performance, attitude, teacher’s proposal and partly election by peers."

So I would recommend you to stick with the simple bottle tippy tap, which is very easy to handle and also to construct. In addition the advantage of such bottle tippy taps is that you can either use them for group activities but also for individual handwashing. In comparison most of custom-made, semi-automated systems (like your Zambia example) tend to often fail because the schools relies on the automated system and children and teachers do not develop new behaviours (because they sit and wait for the automatic system to work). Daily routines on the other hand build behaviours. Therefore daily routines are one of the strengths of the Fit for School approach.

There is a good Manual in the SuSanA library on it www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/2074

A picture from the manual

The Tippy-tap approach, shown right, was developed in sub-Saharan Africa where access to water is limited. In this case, each child provides his or her own water bottle for handwashing. Tied on both ends by a string, the water bottle becomes a minituare reservoir that gives continued flow of water once tipped to its flowing end. To be efficient, the drip hole must be big enough relative to the volume of the container. This
is a simple, low-cost technology but a highly effective self-contained approach.


Another nice picture is from the Philippines on how to place the soap in a way that is does not get lost easily

Soap in a stocking by Sustainable sanitation , on Flickr
Cheers
Christian

Hello all,

Here in Tanzania we are thinking if Tippy Tap is the best handwashing device we can have. As Hajo mentioned, we are starting of with the pilot phase of F4S programme and we need to build low-cost, group hand washing facilities for the schools.
The reason why tippy taps will not be convenient for the first phase is because, the bottles need to be filled frequently. This means that the filling of bottles has to be an organised activity and i am not sure as to how far it will be successful to bring about so many behaviour changes in the pilot phase ( 6 months time).

Simple devices like the one below ( photo taken in a school in Zambia) could also be a good options.We are looking for existing construction manuals for such devices.




Thanks Canaday for the automatic filling options. We will look into it.

Regards,
Shobana

Hi,

I think it is key to use readily available bottles, make the Tippy Taps with the kids, socialize their importance, and get the teachers onboard to make more with the kids when necessary.

There are many designs of TippyTaps and they do not all waste waste, as indicated by the Themessenger.

This design that I make does not involve taking off the cap each time to fill it and can be set up to fill automatically with rain dripping off of a roof. Note that the hole made with a hot nail is on the edge between those two sides, in such a way that the stream of water is as far as possible away from the string. Water only comes out exactly when someone steps on the stick.

I also mentioned in this post
forum.susana.org/forum/categories/27-sch...ashing-stations#7008
a link to how to make a foot-operated valve (from a tank or piped water) for hand-washing by adapting the float valve of the standard flush toilet.

Best wishes,
Chris Canaday