Objectives

Sustainably improve hygiene practices, access to safe drinking water and sanitation, through wells construction or promotion of chlorine for home water treatment)

Intervention areas

• Townships of Maissade and Hinche, Center region

The targeted communal sections are located in the Black Mountains range. These are very enclosed mountainous areas, where all trips are made only by foot (three to four-hour walks). The habitat is dense but dispersed (groupings of households called ‘lakous’). The area severely lacks services, whether public or private. Historically, it was a zone where populations descending from former slaves would escape to when they fled the plantations.

Activities

Improving the health situation, especially in the context of sporadic cases of cholera or epidemics, which requires sanitation of the environment and the construction of latrines, the establishment of water points or the chlorination of water, as well as training programs to raise the awareness of communities and their leaders of good hygiene practices.

Ensuring that the actions are sustainable requires repeating messages to anchor best practices, setting up supply chains to allow access to chlorine, training beneficiary families, users committees for water points, leaders, and even local craftsmen on how to maintain the water points.

• Training and raising awareness: building knowledge and improving practices related to hygiene and sanitation
• Health facilities: support communities in the construction of family and school latrines (promoting curved tiles)
• Chlorination of water: raising awareness and training households to use bleach to disinfect drinking water; training dealers and providing support to implement a sustainable supply chain of chlorine
• Access to water: raising awareness on the maintenance of traditional water sources, constructing simple and robust structures: catchment boxes, standpipes and gravity fed water supplies
• Sustainability: ensuring the viability of the works, disseminating messages and anchoring good practices, following on from the project

Partners

• Village committees and families
• National Directorate for Drinking Water and Sanitation (DINEPA)