Schools often provide models for desired behaviors that we hope children will bring back home. While implementing a community-led total sanitation effort in Maai Mahu division, Kenya, the WASHplus project found that young children in early childhood development (ECD) centers were openly defecating at school.
Three years ago, Teresia Murugi, a mother of three from Maai Mahiu, Kenya, was diagnosed with spinal tuberculosis. She now walks with the support of crutches. Although doctors told her she may never walk again unaided, she believes that one day she will. Her strong conviction comes from improvements she made in the hospital after being bedridden for six months.
Maureen Awour, 37, is a single mother living with HIV in Kibera, a sprawling low-income settlement in Kenya’s capital Nairobi. Her health declined drastically late last year when she contracted meningitis and was hospitalized for several weeks. She is now recovering at home, but she is now bedridden and cared for by her sister Lynne Awour.
The WASHplus project has trained more than 300 public health officers across Kenya to integrate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) messages into interventions for people living with HIV. The officials have, in turn, trained over 1,500 frontline community volunteers to help HIV-positive individuals practice good hygiene.
A nerve disorder transformed a gregarious man into a shut-in. With the help of a WASHplus-trained community health volunteer, he has a new latrine, built-in commode, and supportive rails that deliver the promise of improved hygiene and dignity.
The lack of sanitation spurs a community health volunteer on a personal mission to encourage people to build latrines. He links up families to a team of WASHplus-trained masons to construct or improve latrines.
WASHplus partnered with the Strengthening TB and AIDS Response in South Western Uganda Project or STAR-SW, managed by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, to pilot a campaign to teach youths living with HIV and their caretakers to safely and hygienically manage menstruation.
In Mali, WASHplus-trained relais (community health workers) identify opportunities for behavior change promotion in the areas of hygiene and sanitation and conduct nutrition screening, referrals, and demonstrations that also incorporate WASH messages.
