Jamkhed CRHP Hygiene and Sanitation Program

(visit www.jamkhed.org for more information)

Soak Pits: Keeping in mind the fact that water-borne diseases can be spread through multiple pathways, focusing on the provision of safe drinking water alone while ignoring hygiene and sanitation issues is a strategy destined to fail. To this end CRHP introduced and encouraged the use of soak pits to members of Farmers' Clubs as a means of reducing stagnant waste water that is otherwise a constant presence in the villages. These pungent puddles served as breeding grounds for flies and mosquitoes which spread diseases and contributed to high rates of diarrhea and malaria. Children were also at risk of coming into contact with human excreta given the proximity of the waste water to the houses. After realizing the potential benefits of this low-cost and simple yet effective technology Farmers' Clubs worked to install soak pits at every doorstep in their villages. Wastewater could now percolate below ground rather than collect between houses.

Personal & Domestic Hygiene: The effort to improve personal and domestic hygiene practices was a task well suited for the VHWs, working in cooperation with community groups. At the training center VHWs were taught effective ways to reduce the spread of water-borne diseases that occur through fecal-oral contact as well as the use of unsafe drinking water, combined with proper ways to treat, follow-up or refer infections and illnesses as they occur. The VHWs would subsequently disseminate this information to members of their community groups and others in their village. Seeing as how behavioral changes take time to develop the VHWs' proximity to their target population facilitated frequent follow-up and monitoring. Over time people began to realize the positive health and economic benefits of following the advice and information being offered to them and gradual change began to occur followed by an apparent improvement in community health.

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