Better WASH for Healthy Nepal

ECCA conducted Refresher Training on Nature Club management and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) from November 22 - December 2, 2017. Nature clubs from 20 schools of Lalitpur and Kavre districts took part in the training that brought together newly elected nature club representatives to focus on different issues of water, sanitation and hygiene.

All the participating nature clubs have been supported by ECCA to work in school and community level for safe drinking water, sanitation and environmental issues. They were also provided chlorine solution producing WATA device (along with its training), by the help of which they were able to produce chlorine solution by themselves and use it in their school and adjoining community. Thus, this training also proved to be an opportunity to learn the chlorination method for new nature club members.

"The training was really interesting. Different people have different ideas and if we work in co-operation, we can include those ideas and bring better results", said Grishma, from St. Paul Nature lub. "We also received a lot of ideas on sustaining our nature clubs, so I am very happy."

The nature club members were also accompained by their teacher. "Most of the people in our community are still ignorant about WASH issues. For example, adopting purification method to drink water is not always a prioritized issue", said one of the teachers. "Hence, these kind of program done by ECCA bring frequent reminder and encouragement for our students to raise WASH related issues in their community."

The participants also made action plans to turn their ideas into action. The training ended with commitments from the participants to work together.

Thank you for your support for helping ECCA in its mission of providing safe drinking water access to Nepalese communities.

ECCA recently supported Shree Palanchok Bhagwati Secondary School of Panchkhal Municipality-09, Kavrepalanchok to improve its safe drinking water faciltiy by providing 10 stainless steel body water filters, each fitted with silver colloidal Tulip ceramic candles (capable of removing microbes and protozoas).

The school has 152 students studying from Montessori to class 12. Previously, the school was not able to provide disinfected drinking water for the school students during school hours. The school has one polythene tank for storing water and this tank is filled once a week. The school had no resources to purify the collected water. In such condition, some students had been carrying water from home in a bottle.

According to students and local people, the atmosphere of the place is often hot during school time. Due to this, the students feel more dehydrated and need more water. As the consequence, the school management had decided to run school during early hours (from 6 AM – 11 AM during summer).

The water filters provided by ECCA have been placed in each classroom. The students have voluteered to fill these water filter in their respective classroom each day; and hence, they can now easily have access to purified drinking water. All the students as well as teachers are now happy to have the water filter in their classroom and have committed to use it in proper manner. Total of 152 students and 13 teachers are currently benefitted with the support. Coordination with the school was done through a youth group called SOFIC Nepal.

ECCA is thankful for your continuous support.