What We Do  >> Water & Sanitation

Water, sanitation & hygiene

Sarboday Sangha is implementing this issue for nearly two decades and been recognized by the district administration as one of the best organization. In the entre Contai subdivision organization has created water source, gender base sanitary block, install sanitary napkin vending machine and incinerator in more than 100 schools that include elementary, middle and high schools. From the very beginning this organization gave emphasis on sustainability issue as the experience show that the school sanitation programmes primarily centred on hardware: toilet-blocks and water sources and thus not been impressive. This usually led to a situation where facilities were not maintained and used. Neither was there any component of hygiene & health education in the design to support the hardware component. As a result, planned investments were often not used effectively and there was little demonstrable impact. Sarboday incorporate hiene education programme component, invlove students in regular day to day upkeeping, create seperate water and sanitation fund by introduing a nominal amount from every students and teachers on monthly or annual basis.

 

Sarbodaya aims to :

  •  Make visible the value and impact of school sanitation as perceived by community and thereby raise level of ownership.
  •  To promote the importance of school sanitation at block and district level.
  •  To ensure improve hygiene practices in school children and through children in the families and community.
  •  To develop a functional system for sustanability by resource generation and optimum usage of the same.

Roll out Activities

  •   Creation and restoration of water sources – This is one biggest challenge in school sanitation of rural areas of West Bengal. It is true that Government tried its best to install water source almost in all schools but in many cases this has been used by the community also as they either do not have water source nearby or even they have it is not functioning. One of the reason found that the site selection for the community source was not in consultation with the community and there is no such people who is responsible for maintenance. This organization ensures periodical water maintenance by forming a water and sanitation committee, primarily with women folf as they are the key water collectors for their household. The committee memebrs have been oriented on water and sanitation issue and trained on minor repairing and maintenance. With the help of local administration i.e. Gram Panchayet local youths have been trained on maintenance of water resources and they were termed as Jalabandhu(friends of water).
  •   Construction of school sanitary block – This activity is not onle restricted to contrsuction of school sanitation is not but with more other subactivities. Assessment done with an standarad assement format and then meeting with the school managing committtee to find out the maximum resources caan be alocated. Sarbodaya then applied to other agencies for support. After the approval, the site and the design developed with the help of students. Teachers and elder students given responsible for monitoing the contrsuction work. Emphasis given of numbetr of urinals, water closet, hand washing basin, running water supply and seperate structire for male and female of even in one block there should be seperate entry for them. Sarbodaya agreed with four aspects and those are :
    • Environmental: Children can have the date observing, smelling, hearing and contacting so that they can process this data dependent on their formative stage. Spaces they can experience, including water, sanitation and hand-washing area, and also can give a scope of positive and negative encounters identified.
    • Social: The way that spaces has been laid out and used. For toilets children want both privacy and space.
    • Creative: Sanitary block developed in such a way that the children can be inspired by themselves to make the structure neat and clean. In many schools, children decorate walls or solve functional problems.
    • Physiological: The uses of facilities help to develop necessary motor skills in young children, such as fine-tuning physical movements. Using the facilities requires large motor skills (climbing stairs, using a pump) as well as fine motor skills (opening taps, using doorknobs and locks).
  •   Formation of School Wash committee – Every school a sepeerate committe has been formed ( known as WASH committee) with 2 teachers and two studnets from each class( preferably equal representation of male and female in case of co-educational schools). They were trained on tilet and water resource maintenance, monitoring the facilities on daily basis and responsible for periodical cleaning. They will mobilize the community to provide WASH fund (rupees 1/ 2 per month) for their children studying in the school.
  •   Orientation on menstrual hygiene –In all the girls school and co-education school the sanitation structure include sanitary napkin facilities and incinerator. Gilrs children and the teachers were oriented on menstrual hugiene so that this can be easily taken into consideration.