Sanitation and hygiene
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© UNICEF Bangladesh/2008/Naser Siddique |
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A girl in Manikgonj washes her hands with soap at the local tube well, Dhaka division. |
UNICEF works to improve sanitation coverage in Bangladesh by creating demand in local communities for sanitary latrines. UNICEF also promotes safe hygiene practices.
The Sanitation, Hygiene Education and Water Supply in Bangladesh (SHEWA-B) project aims to reach 30 million people.
Community hygiene promoters
UNICEF supports 9,191 community hygiene promoters across Bangladesh. The hygiene promoters are young men and women from within the local communities, trained to educate their neighbours about the health and economic benefits of proper sanitation, waste disposal and good hygiene. They visit women in their homes and hold courtyard, tea-stall and school sessions.
Sanitation for health and comfort
Hygiene promoters encourage families to invest in quality latrines (that isolate excreta from the human environment) by explaining that money can be saved on diarrhoea medication and through fewer sick days for working adults. They also emphasize the social benefits of improved sanitation, including greater privacy and fewer offensive odours.
Although access to improved latrines remains low at 36 per cent, the number of people defecating in the open and in hanging latrines (which empty directly into water sources) has halved since 2003. Encouraging people to defecate in a fixed place and away from water sources is the first step to achieving proper sanitation.
Mapping toilets
Under SHEWA-B, community members meet for water and sanitation assessment walks around their village or slum. During the walk, everyone is encouraged to point out water sources, sanitary and unsanitary latrines, and spots where people defecate in the open or dispose of waste. Afterwards, the community draws a map that shows all houses, pumps, toilets and waste sites. The community uses this map to plan for future sanitation improvements, which they must finance themselves. By the end of 2008, SHEWA-B communities had installed 355,000 latrines using their own funds.
Hand-washing with soap
In 2008, UNICEF launched a national campaign on TV and radio to encourage hand-washing with soap after defecation and before eating. Hygiene promoters also focus on the importance of hand-washing with soap or ash during their education sessions. After one year, hand washing with soap after defecation had doubled in SHEWA-B areas. Among the poorest in these communities, hand-washing rates more than tripled. 1 in 3 people now wash their hands properly.
School sanitation and hygiene
UNICEF’s earlier successes in school sanitation have been incorporated into the Government’s Primary Education Development Programme. In schools with proper sanitation, students miss fewer days of class. Community hygiene promoters continue to work with local schools to explain proper menstrual hygiene to adolescent girls, encouraging them to change their behaviour to reduce infection.
Download the Rural and Urban Water and Sanitation factsheets
