News from our Mikono Salama (Safe Hands) Programme
‘’ Since taking part in the Mikono Salama training I have begun educating my students about the importance of handwashing and I am supporting them to practice as well and we also see that they are now sharing that knowledge with their families, educating them on how to wash hands’’
Teacher, Babati
We are thrilled to share our programme update from Babati. Firstly, we would like to thank you for your extremely generous support. We scaled our programme to 11 schools across Babati region benefiting over 7000 children.
In Babati, 75% of primary schools had no handwashing facilities which was a huge problem putting school children and the community at risk everyday. This programme has been implemented in different cohorts to support communities to adapt to better hygiene practices.
Our impact in this 3rd cohort of the programme includes construction of multi user handwashing stations which can be used by 8 students at the same time. The programme has helped to provide hygiene education to teachers and school management committees to ensure hygiene continues to be a priority beyond LLT support.
Having support from the local communities and education authorities in Babati, we have managed to install 33 multi user handwashing stands, successfully training 63 representatives from across 11 schools. Every school had an opportunity to establish WASH clubs to promote peer to peer education.
To ensure that the project remains sustainable, we have provided permanent child friendly facilities through this programme which will be a central feature of the school campus and a useful tool for teaching good handwashing. The school management committees have also agreed to continue maintaining the facilities by having annual budgets that will be used for operations and maintenance of the facilities in schools.
As the 3rd cohort ends, we have just launched more programmes with further five schools in Babati. We are committed to reaching those schools by March 2023 to ensure no child is left behind.
