By Angel Chitrakar | Program Officer
The following activities were conducted during July – Sept 2011
Orientation Program
To inform people about the technology and to make them aware, several orientation programs were conducted for the teachers, students, community and different community groups. The orientations given are:
Documentary Show
Documentary show has become popular in school and community. The major focus of the documentary show is to promote safe drinking water and chlorine solution, branded as “WATASOL”. From the documentary, students get information about easy methods to purify water at the local level. The Documentary is on water related issues, water borne diseases and how to disinfect. After the success of the program in the school, the nature club students also replicated the program in the community, neighboring schools and local groups. List of documentary shows:
Door to Door Campaign
To reach out the new community for WATASOL promotion and refilling program in previously implemented areas, Door to Door Campaign has been organized frequently. Door to door campaign was focused in rural place of Lalitpur areas and slum areas of Kathmandu valley. Groups of students along with ECCA volunteers and WATA Resource Materials went to each household in the community and sensitized people about the need of Safe Drinking Water and role of WATASOL for healthy living. Beside the regular refilling program, the door to door Campaigns conducted in different new community were:
National Essay Competition
Since the past 4 years ECCA is organizing National Essay Competition in different topics. This year also, on the occasion of World Environment Day 2011, ECCA announced Essay Competition for secondary level students on the theme “How can we recharge the ground water and make our drinking water safe" The notice related with call for essay competition was published in a national daily Nepali language newspaper Kantipur (June 5, 2011). The students were encouraged to write an essay on the basis of real situation of their own school environment and put their perspective regarding the theme. The competition was open for all the Nepali students studying in grade 6 to 10. The best three essays were announced on July 12 and prizes given on July 23, 2011.
Winner list:
Scholarship Distribution
During the implementation of the WATASOL program in the schools, some of the students from Nature Club were very actively involved and also showed keen interest. So as to encourage them, scholarship materials (a set of note book, bag, copies, pen, pencil and other education materials) were provided. 70 students were provided the scholarship materials. The students were selected on the basis of their involvement in the WATASOL promotional activities and as per the financial need of the student. Selection was done by the nature club themselves in coordination with principal, guide teacher and ECCA social mobilizers.
Scholarship materials were provided to the students of the following schools:
Appreciation Distribution
For supporting the Safe Drinking Water program at the local level, seven individuals were provided Appreciation certificate.
Promotion through local Health Post
In Southern Lalitpur region, linkage was developed with local health post and local women health volunteers. In the beginning, these volunteers were briefed about safe drinking water and WATASOL. Thereafter, while they were visiting households as part of their regular work, they also promoted WATASOL, supported in the refill and monitored its usage. Women health volunteers conducted 9 orientations (one in each ward) on WATASOL to the local mothers’ group and encouraged them to use WATASOL. For about a month, initially, WATASOL was distributed free of cost (to develop the habit). Later, it was sold.
Interaction among different stakeholders
To review the status of WATASOL distribution and promotion strategy, separate interaction was conducted in Dalchowki and in Chaughare (Southern Lalitpur). Participants were from the school teachers, nature club members, school management committee, women health workers and other health post staffs.
Promotion in Private Schools
Orientations and interactions have been done to create awareness in private schools, and Community Drinking Water System (CDWS). The staffs of these institutions have always been supportive in this kind of promotional programs. Through these programs, WATASOL distribution has been possible in the scattered community.
WATASOL stall in different occasions
Students of Tri-ratna Cooperative school are distributing WATASOL from the stall kept in the religious place (Karyabinak Temple) every Saturday. Likewise, ECCA as well as schools are also distributing WATASOL frequently through stalls kept at different occasions and report card distribution.
WATASOL stall kept during report card distribution and other occasions:
Promotion in Adult Literacy Class
To promote WATASOL, the students of Adult Literacy Class were also given orientation about safe drinking water and WATASOL. The students purchased WATASOL and used it.
Chlorinated water distribution through Water Tank
The slum communities have large size public drinking water tank which is managed by their resource person. An entrepreneur visits them and supplies WATASOL. They put WATASOL in the water tank, thereafter treated water is distributed to the slum dwellers.
Promotion at water distributor
In case of Yashodhara Bouddha Secondary School, one of the staff Mr. Dhurba Prasad Amatya promoted WATASOL in Gangajal water distributor – which is a mineral water producing company. After few interaction and follow up they agreed to use WATASOL for disinfecting the equipments. Now the school is selling WATASOL to them.
Sales from individual nature club students
In some schools, some students need to come from far-away places. So the normal promotional activities could not reach such locality. In such case, individual students of that far-away community promote WATASOL in their respective area, for which they get 30% of the WATASOL sales. They are thus helping to promote WATASOL as well as getting certain incentive, which motivates them for further promotion in their area.
Monitoring visits
Regular monitoring is being done in all the localities where Mini WATA and Standard WATA device have been provided. During such visits quality of WATASOL and drinking water is checked and possible programs for the promotion of WATASOL is discussed with concerned persons.
Interschool Competition
Harisiddhi Nature Club of Harisiddhi Higher Secondary School organized an Interschool Competition in different heading such as Essay competition (6th July, 2011), Art Competition (7th July 2011) and Debate Competition ( 8th July, 2011). On the last day of the program (9th July), prizes and certificates were distributed for the winners. The main objective of the program was to create awareness about the Safe Drinking Water and WATASOL among the students from different schools.
Production of A Short Documentary
A short documentary on water borne disease and WATASOL was recently produced by ECCA.
Implementation of Project in 3 more schools of Illam
In coordination with a NGO Namsaling Community Development Center (NCDC), Illam ECCA transferred the technology to 3 more schools at Illam.
We would like to express our sincere thanks to all donors for your continuous support in our initiation. We would also like to request you to send us your feedback, comments and suggestion regarding our project at ecca@mos.com.np so that we could implement our programs more effectively.
Regards,
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