South Asia Wash Result Program(SWARP)

Working Area:

This project is going on in 750 Unions, 53 Upazilas of 06 districts in Chittagong Division. The districts include; Chittagong, Cox’s Bazaar, Noakhali, Laxmipur, Chandpur and Brahmanbaria. The project will cover 83066 students, 2845 primary schools and 285 close touch Upazilas (10% out of the total schools) of the selected districts within project life time.

Goal of the Project:

To create hygienic behavior and awareness among the primary school children of underserved areas and low income communities of selected districts of Chittagong Division.

Project Beneficiaries and Number:

The children of primary schools who are reading in the schools of selected Upazilas. A total of approximately 895440 children in 3444 primary schools will be covered during the project life time and they will receive hygiene awareness motivation and practice hand washing in their normal life.

Specific Objectives:

To promote School WASH facilities and hygiene awareness and practices of the primary schools and enable to sustained use of hygienic behavior; and implement an intensive hand washing campaign in selected primary schools.

Expected Outputs:

The children of primary schools of low income areas under 06 administrative districts of Chittagong division get aware of hygienic behavior and practice accordingly.
Proper hand washing practices sustainably established among the children of targeted schools.
Established WASH facilities in 2-3% of selected school by different government departments through advocacy and networking as model demonstration.

The Key Activities of the program:

Inception Session at Upazila, District and Divisional level
Advocacy Meeting/Workshop with Upazila, District and Division level Officials
Strengthening the WATSAN Committee and School Management Committee (SMC)
Formation of School Health Club/School Brigade
Orientation/refreshers of the students of Health Club/student Brigade
Arrange WATSAN Mela (fair)
Cultural Activity, Film Show and Documentary
Advocacy and Networking with Union Parishad and others
Gender Sensitivity

Major Events:

Basic Training for project staff
Conduct Key Informant Interview (KII) with UNOs & UEO
Conduct Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with School Teachers, SMC & PTA Members
Rapport Build up and conduct Inception Meeting at District & Upazila level
Drawing Competition among students on the occasion of Global Hand Washing Day

Major Achievement:

Build a good relationship with District and Upazila level high officials
Children are practicing hand washing in schools and their houses
Little Doctors are facilitating & monitoring hand washing at school, hygiene practicing, de-worming, nail cutting, etc.
Govt. related department, SMC, PTA, Teachers and local elites owned the program
People are participating with hand washing materials for hygiene practice.
Facilitate orientation by MBBS Doctor, Health Assistant & Sanitary Inspector.
Local Government involved with the development process and they are trying to strengthen SMC and other stakeholders by engaging in the whole process.

Major Challenges:

With regard to Sanitation and hygiene practice, it is very difficult to change the habit of the human being to practice hygiene behavior
Some of the activities such as orientation to Little Doctors, SMC and PTA, entertainment of Coordination Meeting (UEO, UAEO and Head Teacher) and Staff Travel etc. are difficult to manage due to limited budget.
It was difficult to run the program without timely allocation of the fund