Toilets & Water for school children, rural India

Dear Friends and Well wishers,

Thanks for your continued support to Kalanjiyam for the hygiene and sanitation program.

In the last few months the project has tried to improve awareness among the rural students in innovative ways. We conducted series of actvities, singing, dance competions, story telling, staging plays and other fun games to instill knowledge and awareness about hygiene and santation among school children. More than 1000 students in primary, middle and high school participated in the programs and they were a great success.

The project has also successfully transitioned the upkeep of hygiene and sanitation facilities in some of the rural schools and is not adopting other new schools to support.  The support includes, improving the infrastrucure of the hygiene facilities, placing a sanitation worker and conducting awareness programs.

THanks to all of you for your support that we are able to implementing this program and produce sustained results.

Dear patrons and well wishers

Greetings from Kalanjiyam! 

In this last three months, our health and hygiene program has focused on strengthening the drinking water facilities some of our rural schools.  In one of the middle schools which we work in, there were significant challenges faced the existing water filtration system. The problem was identified in the water source, and solution was to install another bore well, so there would be abundant water supply.  Following this a suitable vendor was identified and new bore-well was installed.  Further the pipeline bringing the water supply into the hygiene facilities and drinking water taps required to be fixed and this was also taken up and completed successfully. A new Reverse Osmosis (RO) filtration system was then installed in the class rooms, to ensure clean drinking water would be available directly in the class room.  New RO drinking water system was installed in three schools during the last three months.

Thanks to you support, all hygiene and sanitation workers continued to do their work of maintaining the hygiene facilities in the 12+ project schools

 Thank you for the continued support

Thanks to all your support, the project continues to work with 20 schools for maintenance of hygeine and sanitaion facilities. As always dealing with behavior change is the most challenging issues. Therefore we have conducted workshops on behaviour change and management for students to address issues related to personal and environmental hygiene. The objective of the workshop was to facilitate change in the behaviour of the students and to teach them the importance of hygiene, discipline and ill effects of bad behaviour through activities and role play.

Activities focussing on the necessity of following rules in everyday life and a role play focussing on the importance of body language and good manners were also performed by the staff. At the end the students were made to recap the learnings from the session and henceforth will be mindful of their behaviour in classrooms and in public places.  An activity to express ones feeling through writing and emotions was conducted for the students to understand the causes of behavioural patterns among the students and gain clarity of their deep seated beliefs.

Awareness sessions were conducted in all the project schools on menstrual hygiene.  The students were taken through a very structured speech on self confidence, fun activities to engage the students, awareness speech on menstrual hygiene with video clips, quiz on awareness speech, self-defense tips and  sanitation kit distribution.

Thanks to all the support from donors, we are continuing to run a sustainable program to bring about better hygiene practices among children.  A total of 15 Sanitation Workers have been placed in the schools maintain the sanitation facilities at the school and to keep them clean and hygienic.

The schools are supplemented with cleaning materials. In order to further strengthen the commitment and motivation of the sanitation workers, Best Sanitation Worker is chosen every month and felicitated with a gift. Repair and maintenance of the toilets at 3 of the schools has been done this year. Clean drinking water provision has been given through Reverse Osmosis filtration systems. Water drums have been provided this year to collect and store purified water. Annual cleaning and maintenance of the water tanks at the schools was also done.

The initiative has to promote handwashing habit among children has seen good success. Handwashing soap has been provided to each school and the para teachers have been facilitating handwashing with soap before lunch and after toileting.'

The children wash their hands with soap before eating and after using toilets. The initiative has been successful and the students wash their hands twice a day with soap. A Hygiene-Sanitation Survey conducted to understand the impact of the interventions suggests 70% and 80% of the students surveyed wash their hands 3 or more times a day with soap.

Health classes are conducted by the Kalanjiyam Nurse in 12 of the schools on a monthly basis where she also focuses on reinforcing the messages on proper toileting, hand-washing and keeping body clean, use of slippers, and boiling water before drinking etc. alongside the topic of the day. The Kalanjiyam staff too keep reinforcing these messages to the children whenever possible to bring about a positive change in personal hygiene behaviours.

Dear Friends and Well Wishers,

Thanks to all of you we have been able to renew and continue our support to more than 20 rural schools for maintaining of toilet/ sanitation and drinking water facilities.  The program is ensuring that the appointed sanitation workers are keeping school sanitation facilities clean and the messages on hygiene are continuously reinforced to all the children.

Over the last week of December and first week of January, a unique experience was provided to all the school children.  Volunteers from abroad visited Kalanjiyam villages and schools and they interacted with the children and educated them on hygiene and sanitation.  The main messages on hygiene were reinforced and the amazing experience served to ensure that children will always remember the experience and carry forward the positive messages over their lives.

In addition, adolescent girls were informed and education on reproductive hygiene and this served as a very unique experience for them.  Since the volunteers were from abroad, the students were exposed to a totally different type of communication. Students got the opportunity to clarify their doubts and also learn many new facts and ways of maintaining personal hygiene.