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| Children
washing their hands in rural Mongolia ©UNICEF/MGLA2007-00194/Holmes |
Today is Global Hand Washing Day. Hand washing is one of
the most effective ways to save children’s lives. Each year, 1.7 million
children under the age of five die from diarrhoea and pneumonia. Washing hands
with soap and water, especially after using the toilet and before handling
food, helps reduce disease infections by up to 40 per cent, and has far
reaching effects on the health and welfare of children and their communities.
When children don’t wash their hands, they are more
likely to get sick, not receive the essential nutrients that they need to grow
and develop and are more likely to be absent from school. This in turn affects
their ability to reach their full potential.
While there have been great steps forwards in Mongolia on
hand washing, there are still a number of barriers that prevent children from
washing their hands. One of the biggest is access. In Mongolia not everyone has
access to hand washing facilities. In urban areas 88 per cent of households
have a dedicated hand washing location, with water and soap, while this drops
to just 63 per cent in rural areas.
Many children from rural Mongolia spend nine months a
year living in crowded dormitories, so that they can attend school. Given the
high density of people living together in these dormitories, hand washing is
especially important. But many dormitories and schools lack adequate facilities
or resources.
At the school and dormitory in Tarialan village, northern
Mongolia, the 1,137 students did not have proper hand washing facilities. They had
been using a hand washing room that did not have running water or any drainage.
Every day, students had to walk to collect water, bring it back to the
dormitories and empty the waste water. During winter the temperatures would
drop to below minus 45 degrees Celsius. When it was that cold, students would
not collect water, and they were not washing their hands. UNICEF worked with
the local community to change this by installing sinks in the bathrooms, with
running hot and cold water, proper drainage and a hand dryer. The feedback from
students, teachers and parents has all been very positive. The children are
washing their hands more, getting sick less and are less absent from school.
UNICEF has replicated this project in several rural
schools and dormitories in Khuvsgul, northern Mongolia, helping thousands of
children have hand washing facilities, as well as other water, sanitation and
hygiene amenities. This is part of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Schools
Program, which UNICEF is implementing with local governments, non-government
organisations and civil society.
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Some
serious hand washing in rural Mongolia
©UNICEF/NYHQ2012-1769/Sokol
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We know that improved access to hand washing facilities
has the biggest impact when there is also hygiene education. Consequently, a key
part of UNICEF’s work is raising awareness through events, activities,
trainings, supporting local campaigns and the media. During last year’s Global
Hand Washing Day, partners across the country ran many innovative and
exciting events and initiatives, all with the message of the importance of hand
washing.
One example from last year was the hand washing reality
television show from Khuvsgul. In the show children paid adults a surprise
visit and asked them to show them how they wash their hands. The children would
then educate the adults on what they could do better and pointing out correct
hand washing techniques. The children interviewed a range of adults from
parents, teachers and even the Khuvsgul Governor, all the time increasing
awareness of hand washing.
Already the message of hand washing has reached hundreds
of thousands of people across Mongolia. But we need to do more. Hand washing protects our
children’s health and fosters their development. When we invest in our
children’s education, we also need to be investing in hand washing facilities.
Authors
Batnasan Nyamsuren is the Water and Sanitation Officer at UNICEF Mongolia and Robin Ward is a Water and
Sanitation Consultant at UNICEF Mongolia
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