Wash your hands—it's the advice of parents, doctors, and many teachers here in the US, especially during cold and flu season. That's because the simple act of scrubbing your hands with soap is a cheap and quick way to prevent some diseases.
In the developing world, hand washing is even more critical. An estimated 2.2 million children under the age of five die from diarrheal diseases each year, spread in part by dirty hands—both their own and their caregivers’. Hand washing with soap—along with household water treatment and sanitation—can reduce rates of diarrheal diseases by forty-four percent!
On a prior trip to Kenya, Lauri Wall, Tabibu Africa’s Medical Director, saw firsthand the need for school children to have the ability to wash their hands with soap and clean water. She was stunted to see a young school girl washing her hands in a pale of filthy water, water that countless other children had used throughout the day.
Once home in the United States, with this visual image embedded in Lauri’s mind, the “Wall Wash-Stations” were drafted on paper. She knew these stations must be sturdy and must be placed outside classrooms and near the latrines. The units were designed and built so the dirty water was caught in a bucket below and then used for cleaning latrine floors, again killing deadly germs, wash-station with a double duty. Water would not be wasted.
After returning to Africa, with the help of a local welder and financial donations from donors, five stations were built and place in the most critical areas. However, Lauri knew the children also needed education. So she arranged for children to participate in education activities. Learning the proper way to wash ones hands, about diseases that are caused by passing germs from one hand to another and visual and vocal learning. This education would remind them to “wash, wash, wash your hands, make them really clean, wash away those yucky germs that make you want to scream.”
One thing proved very clear: if you teach students, they will learn it. When the knowledge of pupils goes up, the knowledge of their parents go up, and the practices in school change and parents' behavior changes. Hand-washing stations and programs in schools can help reduce absenteeism, because children are missing fewer days due to illness. Tabibu Africa continues to embrace wash-stations, a simple, but very important step in being healthy.
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