What prompts people to wash their hands and how can we use behavioural design to increase hand washing? Here is what we have learnt so far.
What can we learn from successful global initiatives which promote hygiene behaviour change at scale?
“People are developing a taste for healthy living. They want improvement‑ compared to us and what we are doing, they want better,” says Md Amin Uddin, one of the elders in Arua village in Keshabpur upazila, Jessore, Bangladesh who is optimistic about the future.
IRC and the BRAC WASH programme’s efforts in reaching out to men through the tea stall approach as informal meeting spaces for men to talk about hygiene in Bangladesh.
The 2011 Lancet series says that about 2.6 billion people lack access to proper toilet facilities and about 980 million young people under 18 live in homes without basic sanitation. Moreover, research has shown that unimproved hygiene, inadequate sanitation, and insufficient and unsafe drinking water account for about seven per cent of the total disease burden and 19 per cent of child mortality worldwide.
One of the core strategies of the BRAC Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Programme in Bangladesh is to put special emphasis on involving rural women in decision-making processes, alongside efforts to improve menstrual hygiene and access to water and sanitation.
Since 1972, BRAC has been working with the objectives of poverty alleviation and empowering the poor with a holistic approach. As a top world organization, it has made notable contributions into multi-dimensional sectors on human development activities. In order to achieve the MDGs of reducing child mortality and halving the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 (goals 4 and 7), BRAC has been implementing the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Programme since 2006 in 150 Upazilas (sub-districts) of Bangladesh.
This article was posted on IRC International Water and Sanitation Center blog by Joep Verhagen, Manager, South Asia & Latin America Team, IRC.
Sitting opposite to me is Babar Kabir – Senior Director at BRAC and programme director of the BRAC WASH programme.
Bangladesh’s drive towards zero open defecation led to an increase in demand for high-quality latrine building materials in both rural and urban areas. This created an opportunity for people to unlock their entrepreneurial spirit while contributing to better sanitation in their communities.
Life would be impossible without menstruation. Then why is it considered embarrassing? Thousands of schools across Bangladesh are trying to change that.
Bangladesh is home to nearly 800 rivers. In Mongla, a region off the southern coast, water stretches out in every direction, but there is not a drop to drink. Communities there have taken to harvesting from the sky: through storing rainwater.