Water and Sanitation Health: “It is better to use soap”

Water and Sanitation Health (WASH) education is an important part of IAM’s Community Development Programme (CDP). We continue to strive towards the Sustainable Development Goal of “ensuring access to clean water and sanitation for all.”

For IAM, we do so by providing WASH lessons–we teach about some of the simple changes that can be made in order to vastly improve the health of remote communities in the Central Highlands.

Early this year, we held a WASH training at a religious school. There were a large number of religious leaders, around 40-50 years old, and a number of men under the age of 20. All of them were literate, and when we started the lessons, they all followed along and questions as they came up.

In one lesson, we talked about the benefits of using soap. We discussed diarrhea and the transmission of other sicknesses due to dirty hands. One of the students shared his story.

“My family is often sick, and when they are, I take them to a clinic in a central village. I have borrowed a lot of money in order to take them to this clinic. Now I know why they are often sick. My family does not wash their hands with soap before eating, after using the latrine, before cooking, after cleaning the baby, and so on!

Now that I know the reason for their sickness, I will purchase soap for my family and encourage them to use it and wash their hands with soap. Using water without soap is not enough–and it is better to use soap than to pay a doctor!”

This is just one of many stories about our work in Community Development. To learn more about our Community Development Programme, click here.