This Project is aiming to improve health and hygiene, water, sanitation and hand-washing facilities in schools. Children will receive knowledge to improve their health and sanitation practices. School children are infected by intestinal worms and diarrhea which sap their learning abilities. Schools will be a key factor for initiating change by helping to develop useful life skills on health and hygiene.
Many children within Mathare dies from diarrhea. Diarrhea is one of the biggest killers of children under 5, caused by poor hygiene conditions and lack of adequate water and sanitation conditions. Thousands of schools in Mathare slum, like in many other low-income countries, lack basic infrastructure for drinking water and sanitation, making the precarious hygiene conditions even worse. These conditions not only affect the health of children but also their mental and physical development.
Children and teachers of 10 schools in Mathare slum will be trained in simple, effective methods to improve water, sanitation and hygiene conditions at school. Handwashing with soap will be implemented at the schools. Hygiene education will be integrated into school curricula. Parents will be actively involved and students will be trained to implement the solutions at home as well.
Lowering diarrhea contributes directly to improved mental and physical development of children. A reduction in diarrhea also means that fewer days of schools are lost to disease and medical expenses are reduced. Training children on simple methods to improve water and hygiene conditions will create a generation of citizens who understands the health risks of their environment and is able to reduce them.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
