HYGIENE IS CRUCIAL TO PREVENTING DISEASE.

Poor hygiene means that:

• children are regularly ill and miss school,
• adults are unable to work to support their families,
• patients are at risk in healthcare environments,
• people’s dignity is compromised.

So by changing their hygiene behaviour, people can keep themselves and their environment clean, healthy, stop the spread of disease and live with dignity.

Nevertheless, hygiene remains one of the lowest priority development areas. Although, in theory, it is an integrated part of the global work on water, sanitation and hygiene (wash), this is not usually the case at Assauvet, where we include hygiene in everything we do.

One of our main challenges is to get the Cameroonian government, NGOs and service providers to prioritise hygiene. Hygiene plays an important role in good health, social and economic outcomes. Some research shows that improving hygiene policies is often an afterthought and that in our African countries autonomous hygiene intervention programmes are rare.

The revolutionary approach to hygiene intervention by the NGO ASSAUVET since 2015.

Not only do we include hygiene in everything we do, but we also promote and support the provision of hand-washing facilities in homes, schools, health centres and other community spaces to change hygiene behaviour in Cameroon.

The NGO Assauvet and its partners have professional experience. That’s why we tell you that simply sharing knowledge about good hygiene practices rarely leads to sustainable behaviour change. Instead, based on evidence of what works, we design hygiene behaviour change intervention plans to motivate people by understanding and appealing to what interests them, taking into account the norms and values they share with their wider community.

The key hygiene behaviours we focus on include:

• hand washing with soap at critical times;
• managing water safely, from source to consumption;
• hygienic use of sanitation facilities so that human excreta are treated safely;
• food hygiene;
• safe menstrual hygiene;
• other context-specific behaviours, such as face washing and waste management.

We monitor and evaluate our work to learn from it and share that learning to make a bigger difference. Assauvet and its partners support and encourage the government through the Ministries of Public Health, Basic Education and Secondary Education to implement wash projects in public health facilities, schools and local communities.

Through our partnership agreements with the Government of Cameroon. We implement hygiene promotion programmes in 1,300,000 schools, 1,800 healthcare establishments in 07 of Cameroon’s 10 regions.

We work with local communities in our areas (wash projects).

We raise awareness of the importance of good hygiene and motivate others through partnerships in the fields of water, education, food and nutrition, and health, in particular maternal and child health and trachoma.

The NGO Assauvet and its partners will not stop until good hygiene practices and facilities are the norm for everyone, everywhere.

Where do ASSAUVET and its partners work?

We work in schools and health centres in seven regions: Adamaoua, East, Centre, South, Littoral, North and Far North. In 2015, 17% of the schools in our area (projet wash) in the 07 Regions had access to a basic water service and five health centres had hand hygiene facilities at the point of care.

In the Adamaoua Region, we are working in schools and health centres in the Department of Djerem, the Tibati health district, the Djombi health facilities and the Mim CSI, located in the Djombi locality, where 5 out of 10 people had access to a basic water service and almost two-thirds had no basic hygiene. But less than half the schools have a basic water service, according to our 2021 data.

We also work in schools and health centres in the Madakounai District of the Far North Region. In 2021, only 15% of schools and 22 health centres in this area had basic hygiene services.

Many health centres also fail to comply with national guidelines on water, sanitation and hygiene (wash) due to inadequate facilities.

What are Assauvet and its partners doing?

As part of our (wash project) we carry out surveys and pilot activities in schools and health facilities to understand how people practise hygiene. We then use these results to determine the best ways of improving hand hygiene in these environments.

Our wash project aims to :

• improve hand hygiene behaviours in schools and healthcare settings and ensure that these behaviours are sustainable;
• develop a rigorous database on hand hygiene in environments to inform wider practice.

Our actions to achieve this:

• conduct baseline surveys on effective hygiene improvement strategies;
  create and roll out hygiene behaviour change campaigns, including interactive games and advice to encourage positive behaviour;
• build and improve wash facilities, including water supply systems, gender- and disability-accessible toilets and handwashing facilities;
• improve the capacity of local actors to manage and maintain water, sanitation and hygiene (wash) facilities;
  study the impact of behaviour change campaigns on learners, their families and health staff using randomised controlled trials and cross-sectional studies;
• develop manuals for improving hygiene conditions for schools and public health centres.

Who does the NGO Assauvet work with locally and what actions are carried out locally?

• Our teams on the ground work with each WASH Service Focal Point in each Region, Department and District.
• We build wash facilities and provide technical support to local technicians to rehabilitate wash facilities that are no longer operational.
• We train hand pump repairers and provide them with a wide range of hand pump spare parts.

We provide technical support to development partners and local authorities at national, regional, local and district level:

• Ministries of Education and Health, to ensure the project’s reach and sustainability;
• Academic institutions and local consultants, to conduct research and studies;
• Creative partners and institutions, to implement hygiene behaviour change campaigns;
• School and health facility management committees, to inform the design of interventions and roll out project activities.