Relying on local socio-cultural values to have good hygiene practices permanently adopted

The right to a healthy environment is enshrined in Article 35 of Niger’s constitution, in line with the United Nations’ recognition of access to water and sanitation as a universal human right since 2010. In rural Niger, despite the State's efforts and many actors’ projects to improve people's behaviour, good hygiene practices remain rare. The open- defecation rate is 86% and the rate of access to improved sanitation facilities only 5% in rural areas (UNICEF and WHO, 2015). Catholic Relief Services (CRS) PASAM-TAI project spreads good hygiene practices through messages integrating socio-cultural values, beliefs, and economic determinants that are important to target populations. The project communication strategy uses entertaining, interactive communication channels tailored to the target groups, which has brought good results at scale in the construction of household latrines, their hygienic use, handwashing with soap and water, and safe drinking water storage

Increasing local participation in monitoring and learning to improve WASH services in schools

Implemented by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and financed by The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, the Kom-Yilma (happy, healthy child) project promotes improved hygiene practices throughout 108 “WASH-friendly” schools in the provinces of Bam and Sanmatenga in Burkina Faso. In order to effectively involve local stakeholders, including teachers, students and parents, CRS has incorporated innovative participatory practices into the Kom-Yilma project’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) system. The local communities and government stakeholders play a central role in assessing the school’s progress towards project goals (through community self-assessments and joint monitoring visits), which not only increases local ownership of the project, but also contributes to sustainable behaviour change

Community quality control monitoring of latrines and boreholes in the Central North Region of Burkina Faso

With funding from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, Catholic Relief Services implemented the Kom-Yilma project, “Happy and Healthy Children.” The program served 118 schools in two provinces in the Central North region of Burkina Faso, Bam and Sanmatenga, from March 2014 to August 2017. The purpose of the program was to encourage the adoption of key hygiene practices by the teachers, students, as well as to facilitate access to water and sanitation through social behavior change strategies and by building sex segregated, child-friendly latrines and boreholes. The Kom-Yilma team developed a community accountability approach to more effectively empower and involve local communities in the process of constructing sound infrastructure. This strategy not only ensures the construction quality of the latrines and boreholes, but also sustainable buy-in and community ownership of these new latrines and boreholes so the communities maintain them after the project

Menstrual hygiene management to improve the attendance of primary school-aged girls in Central North, Burkina Faso

How to improve the conditions for girls to attend school, to reduce failure and drop-out rates of adolescent girls, while ensuring their dignity and protection? This was the consideration that motivated the Kom-Yilma project, implemented by Catholic Relief Services in Burkina Faso and financed by the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, to undertake a behavior-change strategy for menstrual-hygiene management in 118 schools in Bam and Sanmatenga Provinces. Discussions and behavior-change communication activities, providing an appropriate space for girls and the active participation of women leaders have already demonstrated positive results for a subject generally considered taboo in the intervention zone

The role of information and communications technology in real-time monitoring for quality WASH infrastructure

The risk of inefficiencies in quality of WASH infrastructure construction is higher in places where monitoring is less or absent or when monitoring is only limited to persons directly involved with the business processes and transactions. To address system deficiencies and constraints in the monitoring of latrine construction in WASH in schools’ project, CRS Ghana explored innovative technology solutions that allow access to quick, cost-effective quality data on progress of construction activities. The solution involves the use of Tablets, GPS, Iformbuilder Platform and BarTender software to develop a simple system to track and certify construction results in real-time. This approach prevents construction defects, supports cost-effective delivery of quality infrastructure, promotes transparency and allows decision making on payments, contracts and WASH programming