Improved Hygiene through the Peace Corps Partnership Program--You Can Contribute if You Like!

I am currently working with the Hygiene Commission of one of the communities in my district to carry out a public bathroom project with a grant from the Peace Corps Partnership Program. You too can donate specifically to this project if you so desire. All you have to do is go to this website: https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=527-024, click donate and follow the steps. Any donation would be greatly appreciated by the community. Every cent counts! Below is more information about the project.

Who will benefit from the project? All the community members will benefit. There are 599 people in total (207 men, 189 women, 112 boys and 91 girls).

Brief Summary: The Hygiene Commission of the community is working with Peace Corps, the district municipality and professionals within the area to improve the hygiene situation in the community. The vision is to implement a project that focuses on the construction of two public bathrooms, developing a recycling program and carrying out a series of educational sessions for the community on health, hygiene and sanitation related issues. I will work with the Hygiene Commission to prepare and present educational sessions about potable water in the home, proper preparation of fruits and vegetables, proper hygienic care of animals/pets, importance of hand-washing, proper trash management in the home, importance of recycling, how to recycle, how to avoid flies, the necessity of cleaning water recipients and how to properly clean the water reservoir. These educational sessions will be partnered with community clean-up days and home visits to monitor whether families are implementing the suggested practices. Construction of two public bathrooms is an element of this project because the vast majority of the homes in the community are not equipped with adequate sanitary services; thus many families are simply going to the bathroom outside; this creates a health hazard. Public bathrooms are the most economical and practical solution to the bathroom situation in this specific community. By combining all of these components, the community hopes to achieve a more hygienic and thus healthier community.

Why the Project is Necessary: Nineteen percent of the population in this community has had a severe case of diarrhea in the past month and had to seek treatment (according to household surveys conducted in December of 2009). According to the Centers for Disease Control, the three crucial components to reducing preventable cases of diarrhea are first and foremost building proper hygienic services facilities, then washing hands at critical times and improving the quality of drinking water. Members of the community are currently are using outdated, out-of-order, full and unsanitary latrines built thirteen years ago. Some of the families do not even have hygienic services to use. Additionally, there are also many families who burn their trash on a consistent basis even though there is a trash collection system. There are various sicknesses that arise each year in the community, many of which can easily be avoided through the construction and use of properly maintained public bathrooms and through educational sessions--raising awareness of how our actions affect our health.

If this project is not implemented, members of the community will continue to use or not use unsafe hygienic services (both options create a hazard), practice unsafe sanitary habits and will continue experiencing high rates of infection of diarrhea and other hygiene-related-diseases. Some of the people are unknowingly carrying out practices that are endangering their families, neighbors and themselves. For this reason, education is crucial in this project. Many people are knowingly carrying out unsafe hygiene practices out of necessity; they have no option but to do what they are doing. Through constructing public bathrooms and creating a recycling program, the necessity is eliminated.

How the Community will Contribute: The community is contributing in multiple ways to this project. The community has already arranged where the two public bathrooms will be built and has formed a Hygiene Commission that is responsible for implementing the construction of the project and assisting with the educational segment of the project. All the community members will be responsible for attending the educational sessions.

In terms of monetary contribution to the project, the community is committed to supplying the bricks, a portion of the roofing materials, unskilled manual labor and the tools for the project. The community has already made arrangements for the bricks and the bricks are in the community at this moment. The families have all agreed to pay 10 soles to help with the costs of the roofing materials. The community is planning to have a faena (a day where the whole community works together on a project) to build the bathrooms. Each family will lend the tools s/he has in his/her household for the construction of the bathrooms. In total, the community will be contributing approximately 34 percent of the project costs. The district municipality is also contributing approximately 17 percent of the costs through transportation of materials and skilled labor.

Background Information: This community made up of approximately 140 households and 600 inhabitants. Eighty-two percent of the homes have a latrine that was built by an organization called FONCODES thirteen years ago; thus many of these latrines are no longer in working order. The other eighteen percent has no form of hygienic services. The current situation creates a health, environmental and sanitation risk, which the community members fully recognize. However, the inhabitants areunable to put forth the money to construct new bathrooms for the future sewage system, nor do they have the funds to build new household latrines. The vast majority of the adults in the community work in the fields of agricultural companies from sun-up to sun-down six days a week for approximately ten U.S. dollars a day. Recognizing the gravity of the situation, members of the Development Committee sought me out in my home in the district capital to explain to me the situation and ask if there is anything I, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, could do to alleviate the situation. We held several community meetings and elected the Hygiene Commission for the community, made up of three men and three women. After several meetings with the committee, we have formed a plan to build capacity of the individuals and families of the community in terms of healthy and sanitary habits and behavior.

The idea is to develop educational sessions about the simple and economic steps individuals and families can take to improve the health/hygiene of him/herself or his/her family. The project also includes developing a recycling program and carrying out community clean-ups. The construction component is to build two public bathrooms (each bathroom having a men's and a women's room) so that community members do have a hygienic facility that all members can use. These changes in behavior and resources combined together will create a more hygienic and healthier community of the community, which is exactly what the community has set out to achieve.