HEALTH, DIGNITY, AND EQUALITY
THROUGH SANITATION & HYGIENE
The UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 include a specific goal to “ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”.
All children deserve the right to clean water and basic sanitation, as stated in the Convention on the Rights of a Child.
Health Hazards
946 million people still defecate in the open with 9 out of every 10 people living in rural areas.
Lack of sanitation and handwashing facilities is a leading cause of the spread of diarrhoeal diseases.
Health Hazards
Menstrual Hygiene and Self-Confidence
Girls should not miss out on important education just because they are girls.
Girls stay home from school during their menstrual period because of the shame and because they have no facilities at school to wash in, so we include private feminine hygiene rooms into all Water Underground Sanitation Centers.
Menstrual Hygiene and Self-Confidence
No Structures
Typically, students defecate in the open around the school.
Clearly, open defecation is a health hazard! These centers do not just preserve dignity but improve the overall health and learning environment around the school.
No Structures
Every Sanitation Center we build
includes multiple latrines and urination stalls for teachers and students, complete with a handwash station, ensuring they no longer have to run into the field to defecate and urinate out in the open.
New handwash stations engrain this important practice into the children making it second nature.
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CLICK IMAGE FOR DETAILS
Boys Sanitation Block
Banana Trees
From Handwash runoff
Handwash Station
Alternation Twin Pit Tanks
Rotating every two years for natural fertilizer uses
Girls Sanitation Block
Menstrual Hygiene Room
IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD, 50% OF DIARRHEAL AND RESPIRATORY DISEASES IN CHILDREN CAN BE REDUCED BY THE SIMPLE ACT OF PROMOTING AND PRACTICING HAND-WASHING AT SCHOOL.
Our hands touch everything, but if you've never had clean water, how would you know about the importance of hand-washing?
The school provides a perfect environment for the encouragement of new hand-washing and sanitation behaviors.
Water Underground installs a hand-wash station outside the latrines in each school to make hand-washing with soap and clean water second nature for children. Instilling these habits in children at school leads to the improvement of hygiene habits for their families at home as well.
Members of the Hygiene and Sanitation commission together with the teachers in the school, educate the children on proper hand-washing techniques and maintain a supply of soap and cleaning products at the school at all times.
