WASH Training the Trainers Day 2, May 13, 2013
Ashley, Margaret, and I biked back to Samrong in the morning and met our volunteers at 8am. Yesterday, they learned why, how, and when to properly wash their hands. This morning they learn how to build a great tool for handwashing.
Building a Tippy-Tap
Proper Handwashing technique is a behavior most easily adopted when it is convenient to do. Most of Cambodia has no sinks or running water, so building a Tippy-Tap makes handwashing a little easier.
A Tippy-Tap, is a simple, hands–free, low cost, water conserving handwashing station that can be set up near toilet and cooking facilities. A jug of water tips forward when you step on a foot pedal flowing water from a hole. By hanging a bar of soap on the frame, you have everything you need for convenient proper handwashing.
We worked with the volunteers to make a Tippy-Tap. Cambodians do not lack ingenuity, and they had no problem getting the concept and putting it all together.
We asked them to think of good places to have Tippy-Taps, and when they suggested near the kitchen, we had them build a second one at one of their kitchens. Everyone in the home had fun trying it out.
Unclean Water
In our initial Community Assessment, Ashley and I took water samples to establish the need for clean water in Samrong. We showed the results to the volunteers and explained more about bacteria and other germs that are unseen in their drinking water. For emphasis, we had the volunteers repeat the test so they could see for themselves how unsafe their untreated water is and reinforce the need for what they are about to learn; water treatment.
Water Treatment and Storage
We presented 4 easy water treatment methods, and the advantages and disadvantages of each: Boiling, bleaching, filtering, and SODIS (Solar Water Disinfection).
Margaret explained and demonstrated each method for the volunteers. A taste test allowed them to compare results of the different methods. We also discussed the importance of properly storing purified water to preventing it from becoming contaminated.
Fecal Mapping
The fecal mapping exercise asks the participants to draw out a map of their community on the ground, and then locate areas where people defecate. We used piles of rice grains to mark these areas that are mostly surrounding the village in the rice fields. Then Margaret poured water on the map to illustrate rain, and we observed how the rice grains, representing feces, washed all over the map into the living areas contaminating the whole village. This emphasizes how good sanitation is a community wide project.
Household Sanitation
The objective of this exercise is to get the participants to recognize and discuss how keeping a clean home is important to sanitary food preparation and necessary for good health. Using a picture of a messy household, we ask the participants to point out the things they see that are not good, and say what they would do to change the situation.
The Fecal Oral Route
Using a visual fecal oral route chart to illustrate, Ashley explains that feces are a major source of illness in humans, and that humans come in to contact with feces through 4 major routes: fluids, fields, flies, and fingers. The chart illustrates the best way to prevent fecal contamination by breaking the pathways of contamination through regular latrine use, hand washing, water treatment, and proper food handling.
Building a Fly Trap
With a greater understanding of the harmful role flies play in transmitting disease from the previous lesson, we showed the volunteers a simple way to make a flytrap using an old soda bottle and some sugar water. The guys really love building projects like this and the Tippy-Tap. The women however, told us they really did not want to cut up their bottle because they it would be good for storing things. We made the traps any way, and hung one at the house of one of the participants. Within minutes, it had trapped several flies.
Community Survey Practice
The final activity of the training is a practice session to prepare them for the next phases of this project. We need to establish more definitively how many people in Samrong have diarrhea now, and identify specific families that need to receive training from our volunteers. Ashley and I developed a survey and we asked each of the participants to go out into the village and ask the questions on it. This practice today is to get them comfortable with doing this in the future. I will be asking the volunteers to do this across the entire community in the near future.
Riding back from Samrong Village, Ashley, Margaret, and I feel like the training was a success. The participants really seemed to understand the key messages in the lessons we had developed. We gave the post test and although the results did not change much (actually 2 of the volunteers did worse) we account this poorly translated questions. Their performance assured us they understood the messages. Hopefully they will be able to effectively communicate these messages to their community. Ashley’s service on Cambodia ends this month, so the next step will be for me to help the volunteers organize several community wide training sessions and begin some individual counseling to the families most in need.
The Ramadan holiday will consume most of July for those in Samrong, and I am actually on my own vacation now. In August, I’ll meet with our village volunteers again and begin the final phases of this project.
Read Fighting Diarrhea in Samrong Cambodia: Part 1
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