Water for People - Children's Sanitation and Hygiene Promoti

Sanitation coverage in Malawi is at 42%. Almost all the facilities in Malawi are traditional pit latrines (chimbudzi), the majority of which are merely holes in the ground and are considered inadequate to prevent fecal-oral disease transmission and are not approved by Government. Efforts to address sanitation have also been hampered by the failure to develop sustainable sanitation services beyond the life of a sanitation project. Objectives To develop a model in Chikwawa District of Malawi that increases childrens hygienic use of latrines, improves the quality of latrines in the area overall and facilitates the emergence and sustainability of sanitation services beyond the project and that no longer require external subsidies. Approach It targets children in schools who generally are not targeted for sanitation and hygiene improvements as the catalysts of change in the household. •The Approach is to promote composting latrines at household level whose contents have economic value as they can be used as fertilizer in rural Malawi and also can be sold to fertilizer making companies to be further processed into packed organic fertilizers. •It is based on a model that will no longer require external subsidies as adult upgrades will finance post-project childrens latrines Summary of Results •The market for Compost has been established •Over 1,300 households have upgraded to Composting latrines. •310 and 810 Childrens composting latrines are being used and managed hygienically at schools and household respectively •Improved hand-washing practices in participating families by 35%

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Science & Technology

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• Grameen