Handwashing Operations and Maintenance

Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, UNICEF has installed dozens of handwashing stations at rural schools in South Africa.

These basins, taps and water tanks were vital when Jive designed the Covered, Clean and Caring campaign in 2021, and even though the Covid emergency is now over, handwashing is still vital to prevent the spread of disease.

That’s why UNICEF was alarmed to find that many handwashing stations had fallen into disrepair due to lack of maintenance.

Building on the success of Covered, Clean and Caring, UNICEF asked Jive to develop a behaviour-change campaign to encourage schools to embrace the importance of hand hygiene and take responsibility for looking after their handwashing stations.

The project began with Partners in Development fieldworkers analysing the problem, and they discovered that many schools hadn’t taken ownership of the stations because there had been no formal handover.

The approach we developed aimed to overcome this obstacle by working with all stakeholders in each school – learners, teachers, cleaners, principals and governing body members – and include representatives of each group in a “solutions team”.

We put together a guidebook, posters and stickers for the team, and made a training video to support school cleaners in keeping the handwashing stations fully operational and clean.

 

The resources can be downloaded below.