Tasleem Hasan

Training local facilitators to empower households on drinking water safety plans

Presentation Outline •Pacific island countries – Location

•Introduction

•Issue

•Methodology

•Results and Discussion

•Conclusion

Introduction Access to safe drinking water is a basic human need and essential to public health

Resolution of 64th UN General Assembly – right to water and sanitation declared as a human right

United Nations Secretary General's statement on World Water Day 2010 (March 22):

More people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence, including war.

In Pacific island countries, every year 2800 deaths result from diarrhoea

Preventable as often linked to unsafe water, lack of proper sanitation and poor hygienic practices

Drinking Water Safety Plans is an efficient mechanism for ensuring safe quality of drinking water thereby improving public health Risk assessment and risk management approach, from catchment to consumer

Issue

81% of the Pacific population live in rural areas or outer islands Most have own water supply e.g. rainwater tanks, boreholes, dug wells, and water is consumed untreated These communities are remote and isolated.

The national surveillance agencies in Pacific island countries often have limited human and financial resource baseHence the national agency do not (cannot) regularly visit and provide advice on drinking water quality issues

What then? What can be done?

Simple answer – empower the community to keep their water supply safe (water safety plans) through effective communicationHow to do this in the Pacific? Many different cultures, over 1000 different languages

Use trained local facilitators and simple water safety plans to deliver the message

Water Safety Plans

ookayy?????

External experts

Locals

Water Safety Plans

OKAY

External experts

Locals

Trained local facilitator

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Methodology

The approach of training local facilitators to empower communities has been implemented in the Republic of Marshall Islands by SOPAC and WHO (South Pacific office)

Done in partnership with the national surveillance RMI Environmental Protection Authority (EPA)

Local facilitators targeted are from local NGOs, College of Marshall Islands water quality section, MoH and MoE field workers, planning office. This builds the capacity in-country for water safety plans

SOPAC and WHO developed a training package

3 day course with 8 modules and delivered the training in Marshalls Module 1 – What is Drinking WSP

Module 2 – Sanitary Survey

Module 3 – Water quality testing using hydrogen sulfide test

Module 4 – How to interpret hydrogen sulfide result

Module 5 – Field visit

Module 6 – Basic household level treatment processes

Module 7 – Field visit outcomes

Module 8 – Simple assessment

Simple Tools - Sanitary Inspection

Greatest facet of WSPs is its applicability to any water supply system (large or small, urban or rural)

Main water supplies in outer islands of Marshalls are rainwater harvesting and hand-dug wells

WHO already has sanitary inspections which are in fact simple WSPs

Example of rainwater harvesting sanitary inspection

1. Is there any visible contamination on the roof catchment area (plants, dirt, excreta etc)? Y / N

2. Are there overhanging trees or branches? Y / N

3. Are the guttering channels that collect water dirty? Y / N

Is the tank inlet screen absent? Y / N

Etc etc

The sanitary inspection forms were modified to suit the local Marshalls situation

The forms were also translated into the local dialect for greater effectiveness

The trained facilitators fill the sanitary inspection form with the household owner and leave a copy with them to act on managing the risks identifiedTransfer knowledge, help them identify the risks, inform how to manage the risks – EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION – EMPOWER households.

Simple Tools – Hydrogen Sulfide Kit

Very important to find the impetus for WSPs (it is not the “health” angle)

It can be pride, sense of security or knowing that the water you drink is of good quality

How can communities know this? Lab testing is irregular, expensive, results don’t make much senseThe presence/absence hydrogen sulfide test can be utilised in such situations

The H2S test is a visual test.

If the water is contaminated with bacteria (H2S producing) then the color will change from light yellow to black.

Clean water sample

Contaminated water sample

Shown to have good correlation with faecal contamination

Visual color change has more impact on the community than lab numbers and drives them towards taking action – impetus for WSP

Results from Marshall Islands

Translation of the WSP training package developed by SOPAC and WHO into Marshallese language by the RMI counterparts

Effective communication by local facilitators to empower households as positive outcomes noted by trained facilitators upon return visit after 3 months

Replication of training to train close to 40 local facilitators from all outer atolls in RMI on WSP by EPA

Conclusion

WSP is the framework to ensure safe drinking water supplies For implementing WSPs in communities (with non-technical people) it has to be very simple

Tools such as sanitary inspections and hydrogen sulfide test can be used

Training local facilitators for effective communication to empower communities is an effective approach for spreading the WSP concept and ensuring safe and secure household level water supplies