Caritas India initiates “Samvaad” in Western UP

Poor Sanitation & hygiene practices and inadequate sanitary conditions/facilities play crucial roles in the increased burden of communicable diseases among school going children. Overall output of the WASH in schools and community programme is to ensure that all schools are brought up to ‘standard of sanitation & hygiene in schools’ and the community has also adopted safe hygiene practices including Menstrual Health Management (MHM). The study found that no school is currently up to the standard of School Sanitation and Hygiene Education (SSHE) Programme. Majority of schools’ lack facilities, with no governance of Sanitation & Hygiene in schools. It is necessary to develop a comprehensive campaign for schools which can improve the condition of schools. So, there is a huge gap between the status and the envisioned outcomes of the School Sanitation and Hygiene Education (SSHE) Programme. At the same, the programme also envisages minimizing the gap between the community level WASH indicators like reduction in cases of menstrual health, vector and water-borne diseases, etc.

Caritas India through her intervention “Samvaad” envisages to children from different schools in the targeted 2 districts of Saharanpur and Muzaffarnagar. It shall also work with community representatives in villages and around members of the citizen forum that will be formed at the district level in all the 2 districts. The target audience for this project will be mainly youth with a special focus on boys. The age group for youth will be from adolescents until the age of 35. At the school level, the project will focus on high school children from 8^th standard to 12^th. At the school front, the level of entry to the youth – adolescents will be through MHM and Puberty sessions leading to peace-based sessions. At the community level, the approach would be the same but the timings for such sessions need to be finalised based upon the availability of the youth.

Caritas India on 12^th-13^th February 2019 through its programme, staff were oriented on the programme goals & program objectives, activities were discussed, and the project staff was given a detailed orientation of the WASH concept. During the orientation, the programme staff was given a detailed insight into Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) and Menstrual Health Management (MHM).

Post orientation, the staffs are expected to finalise the profiling of target villages and schools, log frame, detailed implementation plan, Monitoring Evaluation Accountability Learning framework and will conduct baseline with a target audience based solely on WASH.