Sanitation Behaviour Change in 60 Gujarat Schools

Your generous donations are making hundreds of students in both tribal and coastal area schools aware about the crucial issues of health and sanitation.

As a part of the awareness drive, 4 events were organised in Bhandara and Malekpur village schools of Santrampur, Mahisagar district and Konjni and Monpar village schools of Mahuva block of Bhavnagar. Around 450 students enthusiastically participated in the events.

With the main focus on spreading awareness among the students pertaining to health, hygiene and sanitation issues following activities were organised at the school level events.

• Awareness session followed by movie screening
• Games and fun activities

Various activities and session were organised on sanitation and hygiene also important aspects of cleanliness (Hand-washing-after defecation, before and after meals, regular bathing and maintaining short nail length) were discussed. Through these sessions, students learnt about how these aspects help in staying away from infection and diseases and what steps they have to keep in mind. After the sessions, animation movies related to health, hygiene and sanitation were screened at the schools.

After the event, a group of enthusiastic students will be identified from each school. These students groups will monitor the sanitation facilities within the schools and will also do student mapping exercise in the school. Through mapping exercise, sanitation related challenges and needs of the students (including differently able students) will be identified along with reasons for not attending the schools. Students group will directly report to the principal of the school.

Although the planned events between October to December 2018 had to be rescheduled due to the huge amount of time spent in planning and carrying out an intensive Awareness Campaign on uniting and raising the voice on Violence against women & girls. This Campaign was implemented in 50 villages across tribal and coastal districts of Gujarat. As our entire staff was engaged in the campaign, we could not organize the events as per the schedule.

Now as per the revised plan, we will organize the events in January- Febdruary  2019.

The gracious donations which have poured in will help us do more events and reach out to more children. We hope these events will further help us in developing leadership as well as creating awareness regarding sanitation and hygiene among students & their families.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Global Giving and their donors, for providing their constant and valuable support to the project. Your donation has made it possible for us to reach out to the students in the remote districts of Gujarat.

Once again Utthan has been whetted by Global Giving in 2019, on various parameters