While handwashing is one of the most effective ways of preventing the spread of infectious disease, 40 per cent of the world’s population do not have access to soap and water at home.
ChildFund works in partnership with local communities to overcome this challenge by building handwashing stations in schools, health clinics and villages.
Constructed with sinks, taps, and using water from nearby tanks, handwashing stations in rural schools not only help to stop the spread of illness among students, but are supported by health education programs that teach children how to integrate good hygiene practices into their daily routine.
Sreynoch, 13, lives in a remote village in Cambodia where she had no access to water. She and her fellow students would spend their mornings before school walking to the closest well to collect water.
When there was no water, children were unable to wash their hands.
“With support from ChildFund, our school now has a water system where we can wash our hands any time,” Sreynoch (pictured below, left) says.
In Sierra Leone, 12-year-old Rugiatu (pictured below), her family and her entire community used to get water from a contaminated swamp. The community had an old well, but it was dilapidated and no longer in use.
‘’We had no choice,” Rugiatu says. “There was no other means of getting clean water in my village.”
In the dry season when the swamp dried up, they had to walk long distances to other areas to find water.
“I remember walking one day with a bucket of water on my head, and I almost got hit by a motorbike,” Rugiatu says. “Carrying a heavy water container on my head was very painful. Sometimes, my head ached and I felt pain down to my neck. Worst of all, my brother John was bitten by a snake one day when he followed us to the swamp to fetch water. We could have lost him.’’
Collecting water also often made Rugiatu miss sleep and late for school.
“My mum would wake me up very early in the morning to accompany her to fetch water from the swamp,” she says. “I would first take my bath from the swamp before getting water in the bucket to take home. By the time I got dressed, I was already late for school. This happened so many times.”
When children do not have access to clean water, they cannot wash their hands often enough to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.
ChildFund fixed the well in Rugiatu’s community so that they had easy access to clean water.
“The well is the best thing that has ever happened to me,” Rugiatu says. “If it were not for this well, I would still be struggling to fetch water from that swamp. Life is so much easier for us now that we have clean water in our village.’’
Access to clean water helps but it does not always completely solve the problem. Bad hygiene practices and a lack of knowledge about the importance of handwashing can also put children at risk of getting sick from infectious diseases.
“A lot of the children don’t learn good hygiene skills at home,” Phetpawn, an early childhood teacher in Laos, says. “Some of them only get a bath a couple times a week.”
ChildFund works with communities to raise awareness about the importance of handwashing and helps teachers find ways to encourage children to protect themselves.
Phetpawn’s four-year-old students incorporate hygiene lessons into their classes. Children sing, count and use handwashing to practice hygiene, numeracy and language skills.
“Children love playing with water,” Phetpawn says. “So for the kids, handwashing is an activity they have a lot of fun with.”
Handwashing prevents the spread of infectious disease
Especially during COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends frequent handwashingunder running water for at least 20 seconds.
“ChildFund gave us buckets to wash our hands,” Rugiatu says. “People came to talk to us about washing our hands, and they advised us to use clean water to wash our hands. But if it were not for this well, how would we be washing our hands during this coronavirus?”
At ChildFund, we’re committed to helping children, their families and communities stay safe and healthy during this pandemic, and always.
You can help keep children safe by purchasing Gifts for Goodor supporting our long-term development by sponsoring a childor a community.
On hearing of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, millions of women across the world took to social media to express their awe and gratitude for her life-long contribution to justice. Shortly after and closer to home, we acutely felt the loss of former ALP Senator and later Human Rights Commissioner, Susan Ryan.
These two women were both pioneers and highly respected across the political spectrum for expanding the protections of women and girls.
On reflection, it is not surprising that I felt so unsettled by the losses of these exceptional women.
We lost living treasures in a time of global crisis and uncertainty. Justice Bader Ginsburg and Susan Ryan respectively had voices that rang loud and clear in public life over many decades. They both dedicated their lives to the principle of public service and to the public good. Both women leave us with remarkable legacies. Specifically, a legacy of character and persistence.
Look back to the commitments from 189 world leaders to the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. Progress for women and girls had been measurable, but painfully slow and hard won. In the international aid and development sector we have witnessed some significant leaps forward during this period. Today, there are more girls in school than in any other time in history. This tremendous gain has known dividends. The more access women have to education, the more likely they are to send their children to school over longer periods. This trend continues across generations. Educating girls is the closet thing we have to a silver bullet.
The onset of COVID-19 has thrown many of our development gains up in the air. We are at risk of losing the important progress made for girls.
The arrival of a global health crisis is now is laying bare the existing inequalities in our society. It is all too evident that the worst impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic will weigh more heavily on girls and women.
In Papua New Guinea, violence against girls and women remains endemic. It is estimated that over two-thirds of women in the country will suffer domestic or intimate-partner violence during their lifetime. This extends to sexual and physical violence against children, with girls especially vulnerable.
Behaviour change at all levels of society is vital, and ChildFund is committed to implementing programs and services which address the causes of violence; build the capacity of the health and justice systems, and strengthen the services available to survivors.
In Timor-Leste, motherhood is still one of the greatest dangers to a woman’s life. A lack of health infrastructure, resources and information is contributing to what is one of the high maternal mortality rates in the region. Mothers are dying from complications during pregnancy, at childbirth, or soon after childbirth, and so are their newborns.
With the support of the Australian Government, ChildFund Timor-Leste is helping to strengthen health systems by upskilling and training doctors, nurses and midwives on child and maternal health, and encouraging mothers to deliver their babies in health clinics rather than at home. In remote areas, ChildFund has trained community health volunteers to advise, support, and care for pregnant women and their babies before and after childbirth
Another key indicator of gender equality is the ability of women to participate in political processes, from local government through to national bodies. Again, this is an area where any advances are painstaking. In 2020, only 1 in 4 parliamentarians are female.
Of even greater concern is the fact that in some nations, women are losing the small amount of representation they have. Australia is a case in point. According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2020, Australia is now ranked at 57 out of 152 countries in terms of political empowerment for women. In 2018, Australia held the 49th position.
Rising unemployment threatens to force more girls out of school and into unskilled work to supplement family incomes. This can lock them, and their children to come, into a lifetime of poorly paid and exploitative work.
Early marriage is another risk, with dowries offering families a financial life raft during a time of economic hardship. Job losses and uncertainty within households is also spurring an increase in family violence, which has a profound impact on the girls and young women who either witness or personally experience abuse.
At ChildFund, we know that promoting gender equality not only benefits women and girls but entire communities. It has profound and widespread implications for economic and social development around the world.
If we are to fulfil Sustainable Development Goal 5 – achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls – then we must continue to invest in initiatives that support and promote girls’ equal participation in our societies from an early age.
We must ensure that our leaders, in Australia and around the globe, continue to ringfence overseas development assistance for initiatives that build, strengthen and maximise the contribution that girls and women can make in public life, workplaces, communities, and at home.
As we mark International Day of the Girl, ChildFund remains committed to highlighting and addressing the obstacles facing young women, to building supportive environments around them, and giving them the skills, knowledge, and tools to drive change.
I believe every girl should have the right to learn, to contribute, and to meaningfully participate throughout childhood, adolescence, and into the future. Because gender rights are human rights.
