Problem

Safe Hygiene practices are crucial in preventing water and sanitation related diseases like cholera, dysentery and typhoid that result in two million deaths a year. These practices include the safe disposal of feces and safe drinking water storage. In many parts of the developing world these are not traditionally associated with disease prevention and therefore require active promotion within water and sanitation projects.

The Gift

Hygiene education/promotion encourages people to replace their unsafe hygiene practices with simple, safe alternatives. WaterAid and its partners use many ways to promote good hygiene practices and all are based upon the individual community's existing knowledge, beliefs and practices. Our approach to hygiene promotion recognizes that people do not change their behavior simply because they are told about health benefits. People are just as strongly motivated by improvements in privacy, convenience, environmental cleanliness, self-esteem and social status resulting from changes in sanitation and personal and household hygiene. Your donation will allow WaterAid to spend significant time and effort invested in working with communities to identify what motivates people to act in a particular way, how different hygiene behaviors are articulated within everyday life and the positive values that communities already relate to hygiene.