Humanitarian organisation, GOAL, has constructed group-handwashing stations in two primary schools in Zimbabwe as part of its Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project.
According to the organisation, Prospect Primary School in Waterfalls, Harare, and Chipembere Primary School were struggling to access water and limited handwashing facilities.
Limited handwashing facilities, it is understood, deprived the schools of basic hygiene and often forced the schools to send children home early.
In line with number six of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aims to ‘ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’, the WASH project was carried out in partnership with UNICEF and the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education (MOPSE).
‘The handwashing stations are important for improving handwashing practices for students but will also have a knock-on effect for the wider community, with students bringing benefits of hygiene promotion home with them’, a statement from the organisation read.
‘The handwashing facility is simple but effective. It is designed to enable [ten] children to wash their hands at the same time. The concrete structure has a long trough to catch and drain away the water, which comes from a fixed parallel pipe. Pieces of soap hang at regular intervals on the station’.
UNICEF, in a report, noted that only about 35 percent of Zimbabwe’s population has access to adequate improved sanitation; while Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) International reported that 67 percent of people living in rural Zimbabwe do not have access to safe drinking water.
‘We hope the programme is extended to neighbouring schools and other parts of the community, such as the church’, GOAL quoted Prospect Primary School headmistress as saying.
‘Handwashing is the first defence against Covid-19 and other diseases. We are happy that this can help prevent the spread of the virus in our school’.
Source: GOAL Zimbabwe
Photo source: GOAL Zimbabwe
