Dear all,

The synthesis of our thematic discussion on urban WASH in schools is now available!

You can find the pdf-document in SuSanA's library: www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/2677

Thank you for your interest and participation!

Kind regards,
Katrin

Dear discussion participants,

We are happy to announce that the synthesis report of our discussion on urban WASH in schools is close to being published on SuSanA. Thank you again for your valuable inputs and the vivid discussion.

As you may know, we usually include a list of contributors, including information on their affiliation and country, at the end of the summaries of our thematic discussions.

As we are missing some of that information, we wanted to give you a chance to complete or correct your information. Therefore, we kindly ask you to contact Thomas Langkau (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) to provide the missing details. We are happy to add this information to the report before publishing.

All requests for changes have to be provided by Wednesday, November 9, 9 am CST.


Please take a look at the following list:



Thank you so much,
Katrin

Hi all,
Prit here, from Uganda. I am not an expert in WASH in schools, but would like to share some experiences we have from a city sanitation planning project in six small and medium towns is northern Uganda. The project includes sanitation in public schools and public health facilities. The focus of the project is improving capacities of local governments to plan and implement sustainable interventions in sanitation and improve faecal sludge management across the city. The project is midway and we are yet to fully assess if what we are doing is worthwhile.

Our general learnings from schools:

• Low level of interest (there is ample awareness) amongst the school management to improve hygiene in schools. Apparently they have more pressing concerns than sanitation, so sanitation is not prioritised
• Corruption and embezzlement of funds a common practice within school management. The funds that could be utilised for maintaining hygiene in school toilets
• Lack of oversite, monitoring and accountability from higher authorities (district and local government)
• Theft and vandalism of premises, not by the students, but by the community living nearby
• Lack of funds, transfer from district education boards happens once in a few months and that to with reduced budgets, so most pressing issues are first tackled like salaries of teachers.
• Since public schools rely on public funds and education is supposed to be free in Uganda, parents not willing to spend any money.
• So in our opinion the lack of sanitation in schools is a systemic problem and less of hardware and awareness raising issue.


Our approach for WASH in schools via local governments and town councils:

• Raise the political will for sanitation at all levels: local, town council and district level, this is more general approach and is a given
• Involve head teachers (or representatives) in the Sanitation Task Force for the Town Councils. This arrangement provides for a dialogue between the town councils and the school management committees
• Enforce the Town Councils authority to close down schools with poor levels of hygiene. The health inspector issues three warning notices and non-compliance can result in closure. This is a delicate issue and has to be dealt with precaution as it can kick up a political dust storm, but as long as the political body backs the technocrats, this can have a positive effect to improve hygiene levels
• The town councils Sanitation By-laws, clearly underlines the accepted student to stance ratio (1:40 for days schools and 1:25 for boarding schools), requirements for functional hand washing facilities, i.e availability of water and soap, and level of hygiene on a six point scale – indicating the absence or presence of 1. Faeces and or 2. Urine on the floor, 3. Flies, 4. Odour, 5. Solid waste in or around the toilet and 6. Presence or absence of toilet paper. The cumulative score gives the level of hygiene in the school
• Developing a schools sanitation plan (max four pages) that describes the roles and responsibilities of actors: School Management Committee, the Parents Teachers Association, the Town Council staff, the District local government, etc., The plan also provides for indicative budget allocation for O & M for sanitation, future plans for rehabilitation and expansion. The monitoring of the implementation of the plan is the responsibility of the town council staff or the district local government.

There could have been a few more points that I might have forgotten. But as I have said earlier, the project is under way and we yet have to understand if or not using the local governments with in WASH in Schools will have any impact.

Cheers

Prit.

Dear Cecile,
BoM means Board of Management for the School.

Very true A MoU is a simple but powerful tool to get the stakeholders to talk to each other and to agree and is a first step before a more binding commitments.

In the longer term what is your strategy for sustainability and dissemination?
Caritas Switzerland capacity builds the School Board of Management and Caretaker on Operation and Maintenance of the WASH infrastructures. We also integrates income generating activities in our WASH interventions e.g. Kitchen Gardens. Proceeds from the sale of the vegetables from these kitchen garden are used for maintenance of the project by buying the consumables and also for doing minor repairs. We have also developed O&M manual which is remain with the school after the training that helps them for future references.

What are the links with institutions (at municipal level? district/national level?)Caritas Switzerland works hand in hand with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health at the Sub-county level (Divisional), County level (District) and at National level from the design of the project and even after implementation of the project.

How will O&M continue after the project ends? Since O&M is one key issue of sustainability?
School Board of Management and Caretaker are in charge of Operation and Maintenance of the WASH infrastructures when the project ends. The pupil themselves and the School health groups strive at proper use and maintenance of their infrastructure.

Will one stakeholder be in charge of Post implementation monitoring?
Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health at the County level (District)and Sub-county level (Divisional)

Who will pay for O&M after the project?
Ministry of Education and the proceeds from income generating activities in our WASH interventions e.g. Kitchen Gardens, soap making etc

Dear discussion participants,

Thank you very much for your interesting contributions to our discussion on WASH in Schools and our the focus on the implementation level in this thread.

The official part of the discussion is hereby closed but you are of course welcome to continue to post in this thread.

We will provide a synthesis report of the discussion by the beginning of November and will I will inform you here how to access it once it is available.

Best,
Katrin

Dear Wanjihia,

Thank you very much. Yes, you answered my question, except what is BoM ?
I find the strategy of Caritas in Kenya very interesting.
A MoU is a simple but powerful tool to get the stakeholders to talk to each other and to agree and is a first step before a more binding commitment.
A MoU is a good tool to clarify the role of the NGO within the project but it could also be a very good output to achieve during the project between the stakeholders (without the NGO) so they agree on their respective responsibilities, on the financial aspects, on the monitoring and on the impact (i.e. What happens if you manage to keep the school premises clean/ what happens if you don't). The next step would be binding agreement between all schools and appropriate institutional level, so the accountability for WASH in school won't depend on individuals.

In the longer term what is your strategy for sustainability and dissemination?
What are the links with institutions (at municipal level? district/national level?)
How will O&M continue after the project ends? Since O&M is one key issue of sustainability?
Will one stakeholder be in charge of Post implementation monitoring?
Who will pay for O&M after the project?

Best regards,

Cécile

Dear Cecile I hope I have answered your questions.

We is Caritas Switzerland and we have been working with 21 schools for the last one and half years. Our core activities is WASH in schools and Caritas Switzerland have been in this sector for the last 15years

Thanks CHAST means Children Hygiene and Sanitation Training

From the pictures shared by Belinda to move from picture A to picture B it require the following:

• Change of mind set of the children and the teachers by them developing a culture of cleanliness and proper use of the latrines;
• Teachers as role models. ‘Practice what you preach’. For that, they should also portray good hygiene behaviours, including use of latrines and hand washing facilities – both at schools and at their households;
• Integrating hygiene and sanitation education in the school curriculum: The legislative framework in the education sector in different countries should give scope for CHAST to be included in the curriculum;
• Promoting behavior change;
• Using what they have without expecting external support;
• Believing in the kids and supporting them to maintain their sanitation facilities because they are capable.

In the case of schools reverting back from three star to open defecation or poor conditions, is this not a question of monitoring and enforcement? It is one thing to set-up a three star system but unless there is a institutionalised system within education to monitor the situation in schools, they will revert back! It's human nature- like diets or going to the gym, unless there is a built-in incentive to do something, it is our nature to revert back to norms! So therefore how do you change norms in schools? Creating programmes which develop new habits, routines and behaviours are importants. But I believe equally important is monitoring. How can guided monitoring better enforce changes in norms? Who is held accountability when schools revert? These are important questions to be posed and addressed in programme design. Sorry for my delay in responding back to you!

Absolutely programmes need money to run! But often what is more important is commitment, as mentioned in the last post. The question is how do we build the commitment by the Education officials to take on WASH in schools- fully? A number of examples have been suggested. Such as in the monitoring, Educational Information Management Systems (EMIS), which hold schools accountable for WiNs and are often linked to budget allocations for Ministries. Another suggestion in breaking WiNs into do-able actions. It is always easier to gain commitment if it is in a stepwise approach leading to a bigger goal. The last post brings together equally an important point that the right technology options- simple, usable, durable and desirable must be available in order for sustained WiNs and commitment. Other posts also talk about the importance of educating the educators? So does WiNs need more money? Perhaps no, but commitment. However, it still begs the question, what can we as WASH sector do to ensure this commitment- what are some specific strategies at implementation level?