Appropriate Projects: Hand Washing Stations

Joshua and I recently applied and received money from an organization called Appropriate Projects to carry out a water and sanitation project in Kayunga District. I'm really excited about the project because it is to build 16 different hand washing stations in health centers around the District. Below is the basic write up that we submitted along with the grant money paper work - you can also find this write up on our page on the Appropriate Projects' website.

Kayunga District Hand Washing Station Project - Uganda
Location: Kayunga District, Uganda

Community Description
Kayunga District is a rural district located in Central Uganda along the River Nile. The residents of Kayunga District are very ethnically diverse: There are 52 different tribes that comprise Kayunga District.

The majority of the population belongs to the Buganda Tribe of central Uganda, Banyala Tribe, and refugee populations from other East and Central African countries fleeing hardship. Most of the population earns their living through farming a variety of crops, herding livestock, and fishing along the River Nile and in Lake Kyoga located in northern Kayunga District.

Kayunga District Youth Center was established in 2006 to build District capacity in identifying and providing HIV prevention, care and treatment services to the surrounding population of Kayunga District. The objective of the youth center is to build infrastructure, capacity, and systems of local public and private partners in central Uganda to ensure sustainable, quality, comprehensive HIV and other health-related services for the surrounding communities. The Youth Center Staffs daily go to rural health centers to service the populations for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment, TB assessment and referral, and malaria prevention.

The hand washing stations located at health centers throughout the District are lacking. Though hand washing is taught at health centers and stressed for clinical workers, it has become apparent that the means to keep a person’s hands clean is unavailable. Having unclean hands after using a latrine can lead to a variety of fecal to oral transmissible diseases such as cholera, typhoid, giardia and other gastro-intestinal problems which greatly affect people accessing health care who most likely already have a weakened immune system.

Project Description
This project is to build 16 handwashing stations in health centers around Kayunga District, Kayunga District Hospital, and Kayunga District Youth Center. The hand washing stations at Kayunga District Hospital will be located at each of the three latrines as well as located in all five wards.

In addition, hand washing cards will be laminated and placed at the hand washing stations to direct proper technique. The cards will be in written in the local language of Luganda as well as English, which is the national language.

Members of Kayunga District Youth Center will go to the health centers to set up the handwashing stations as well as give health talks on the proper way to wash hands. They will also train a health official at the centers on how to give the sanitation talks.

The hand washing stations will each be comprised of a 20-liter tank on top of a metal stand. The tank will have a nozzle for maintaining a stream of water while hands are being washed. There will also be a soap shelf located on the metal stand. The laminated card will be attached to the 20-liter tank at eye level.

The health centers all have a local source of water that will be used to keep the hand washing stations full. The health officials at the different centers will also be in charge of keeping the tanks full.

The project funds will be used to buy the materials to build the hand washing stations: 20 liter tanks, nozzles, metal frames as well as the lamination fee for the hand washing cards.

Project Impact
This project will benefit the following people on average:

• Kayunga District Hospital: 350 people per week
• Kayunga District Youth Center: 140 people per week
• Health Center IV (2 Total): 280 people per week
• Health Center III (3 Total): 545 people per week
• Health Center II (2 Total): 270 people per week

Comments
This project will lead to the improvement of the hygiene of the patients and staff of the health centers as well as the children and youth using the facilities. It is designed for extremely high impact for the funds expended, and is being implemented to serve for many years to come.