By Pueblo a Pueblo | Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)
Observing Our Impact
Throughout Pueblo a Pueblo's partnership with Agua Escondida Primary School, we have been measuring our impact on the school by making observations both before and after we implemented critical interventions related to student health.
Tomás Mendoza is our Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator. He and his team use data collected in real time to make our projects more effective and more efficient each year. When Pueblo a Pueblo intervenes on behalf of rural Guatemalan families, we want to know that we are delivering positive results.
Reflecting on Our Results
Before our interventions, our team observed that only 55% of upper-school students washed their hands after using the restroom, and no students used hand soap. After Pueblo a Pueblo staff implemented sanitation improvements and hygiene education, those numbers rose dramatically: 99% of students washed their hands, and 94% used antibacterial hand soap.
A Real Win for Students
These results are helping improve students' health, happiness, and education. Diarrheal disease is considered a “major infectious disease” and significant public health risk in Guatemala and puts infected children at risk of long-term malnutrition and death. Furthermore, education is a precious resource here in Sololá, where more than one in three adults cannot read or write, and poor sanitation infrastructure at home and at school counts among the top reasons young Guatemalans perform poorly or drop out.
Proper handwashing hygiene has been found to reduce the incidence of diarrheal disease by 31%, and Pueblo a Pueblo’s recent efforts have given students at Agua Escondida both the education and the infrastructure they need to protect themselves. Our post-intervention evaluation confirms a happier, healthier school, where students experience fewer interruptions to their education.
How YOU Can Help
We have completed Phase I of our collaboration with Agua Escondida Primary School—now our team is gearing up to double our impact with Phase II! Read more about what we've done and what we have planned here.
Can you help us make these plans a reality? Join us in making 2020 our most successful year yet! Click the button below to support our data-driven programming today.
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