Meeting Hygienic Environmental Needs through the Active Participation of the Community

The Swajal Project with its community engagement efforts has proved that rural communities are capable of handling their problems and are ready to take challenges if they are allowed to decide for themselves.

To meet the objectives of Swajal it was not sufficient just to construct improved water supply and environmental sanitation facilities. New facilities have to be used, continuously, by everybody and in a safe manner. This requires interest from both communities and project staff in ensuring that safe, reliable and accessible facilities are constructed, used and subsequently maintained. To maximize potential benefits of water supply and sanitation projects, technical and behavioral measures must go hand in hand. Benefits of a safe water supply will easily be lost if water is not collected and handled in ways so as to protect contamination before it is consumed.

The Hygiene and Environmental Sanitation Awareness (HESA) component in the project is meant to establish the link between improved facilities and user practices. The need for Health and Environmental Sanitation Awareness directly follows from the general objective of the project, which is “to provide sustainable health and hygiene benefits through improved water supply and sanitation facilities”. HESA is instrumental in this process as it promotes an optimum use of water supply and sanitation facilities care for their continuous operation through proper operation and maintenance. The broad objective of HESA is "To reduce morbidity by generating a demand for safe water and sanitation".

In order to attain the objectives of HESA, a community based tool known as HEALTHY HOME SURVEY has been developed in Swajal. This is a tool, which is being used very effectively by the community to regularly monitor the personal, domestic and environmental health and hygiene of their village and promote behavioral change.

This unique tool works on fairly simple principles. In the village one woman from each house is involved in the identification of attributes of a healthy home, categorization and finalization of attributes of personal hygiene, domestic hygiene and environmental sanitation. Again the results of healthy home survey is discussed with community. And based on the findings of the healthy home survey and subsequent discussions, the community decides the targets of improvement in health & hygiene of the village at all 3 levels - personal, domestic and environmental.

 

Swajal has demonstrated that such examples of community participation are extremely successful and serve as models for similar application elsewhere. Such initiatives taken in Swajal should be replicated in other community-based programmes.

I was actively associated with the Swajal project after the creation of the State of Uttaranchal and in establishing the Project Management Unit at Dehradun. Now as this project is heading towards completion, of the pilot project it is appropriate that we should record our rich experiences and lessons.

Alok Kumar Jain

Secretary, Medical, Personnel & Women Empowerment.

Government of Uttaranchal