Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
Swachh Vidyalaya is the national campaign driving ‘Clean India: Clean Schools’. A key feature of the campaign is to ensure that every school in India has a set of functioning and well maintained water, sanitation and hygiene facilities. Water, sanitation and hygiene in schools refers to a combination of technical and human development components that are necessary to produce a healthy school environment and to develop or support appropriate health and hygiene behaviours. The technical components include drinking water, handwashing, toilet and soap facilities in the school compound for use by children and teachers. The human development components are the activities that promote conditions within the school and the practices of children that help to prevent water, hygiene and sanitation related diseases.
The provision of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in school secures a healthy school environment and protects children from illness and exclusion. It is a first step towards a healthy physical learning environment, benefiting both learning and health. Children who are healthy and well-nourished can fully participate in school and get the most from the education. Hygiene education in schools help promote those practices that would prevent water and sanitation related diseases as well as encourage healthy behaviour in future generations of adults. Girls are particularly vulnerable to dropping out of school, partly because many are reluctant to continue their education when toilets and washing facilities are not private, not safe or simply not available. When schools have appropriate, gender-separated facilities, an obstacle to attendance is removed. Thus having gender segregated toilets in schools particularly matters for girls. Gender norms and physiology make privacy more important for girls than boys, and biological realities mean that girls need adequate sanitary facilities at school to manage menstruation. Basic facilities that provide for good hygiene and privacy, along with sensitive health promotion assist girls to stay in school and complete their education. Hygiene in school also supports school nutrition. The simple act of washing hands with soap before eating the school mid day meal assists to break disease transmission routes. Children get the nutritional benefits intended, rather than ingesting bacteria, germs and viruses. Studies show that when hand washing becomes part of a child’s daily routine the benefits to health are evident and the practice does not easily fade.1 School is therefore an ideal setting for teaching good hygiene behaviours that children can also carry home.
Having safe water, toilet and hygiene facilities in schools promotes equity. All children are equal in their right to access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, and all children gain benefits through the improved hygiene practices promoted in schools. By providing gender-segregated toilets, students are assured of privacy and dignity, a particularly important factor for girls’ school attendance. By providing inclusive and accessible facilities, children with special needs are able to attend school and further contribute to the development of their society. Having a clean school fosters a child’s pride in his or her school and community. It enables every child become an agent of change for improving water, sanitation and hygiene practices in their families and within their community. School water and sanitation clubs encourage students to participate in taking care of latrines and handwashing stations, and in providing safe water where necessary. Club members create rotating lists of responsibilities, sharing sanitation- and water-related chores among both boys and girls. This also fosters pride and ownership, and it counteracts the belief that these tasks are only for women and girls or particular social groups. Children with disabilities are also vulnerable to dropping out of school. Accessible school facilities are a key to school attendance for children with disabilities. An effective water, sanitation and hygiene programmes seeks to remove barriers by promoting inclusive design – user-friendly, child-friendly facilities that benefit all users, including adolescent girls, small children and children who are sick or disabled. Toilets and handwashing facilities,for example, need to be customised to fit children’s smaller size, and water, sanitation and hygiene facilities that are traditionally designed for the ‘average’ child must consider the fact that children have a wide range of abilities and needs. The most cost-effective way to improve access for all children is to incorporate accessibility into the design from the outset, rather than making expensive changes later. To make sure facilities are accessible, it is essential to involve children with disabilities in the design process. The cost of making inclusive facilities is minimal compared to the costs of exclusion.
Comments
Post a Comment