Monday, June 18, 2007

How's your hygiene?

Last week we were able to get a little more training ourselves. Kirk Schauer, of Seeds of Hope, and Diane Foss, another Lifewater trainer, were in Boise teaching hygiene lessons to the Zambia missions team at our church. Kirk and Diane are both really skilled using paticipatory method to teach the lessons so the training was alot of fun. Hygiene and sanitation have very close ties, so it was great to learn more. Hygiene is about blocking disease pathways; things like the importance of washing hands, keeping flies off food, keeping animals away from water sources, etc... Sanitation deals with how to properly deal with human waste (poop) by using and promoting latrines. Over the past few years Seeds of Hope has done a lot a hygiene education in the communities were they work. As they take on sanitation, it will be built on the hygiene foundation. We were really glad to get exposed to these lessons. Attached is a photo from the hygiene training. It shows a "tippy-tap" which is an inexpensive hand washing station made from a plastic jug. Typically it is hung outside a latrine and the user pulls down on the lower string to pour water on their hands so they can wash. Kirk is pictured on the left in the tippy-tap photo.

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