Rwanda’s Innovative Hand Washing System Saves Lives
A closer look at innovation in times of a pandemic
Unless you’ve been stuck in an elevator, you probably know about singing “Happy Birthday” while washing your hands. But you may not be aware that that Rwanda — a small country in East Africa — has a significantly lower number of COVID-19 cases when compared to the neighboring countries in Africa or in major first world countries. Why? A simple, creative campaign to encourage citizens to constantly wash hands.
During the early stages of the pandemic, the Rwandan government shared a hand washing message to its citizens, and it worked. Known Rwandan officials and medical workers taked directly to people on both traditional media and social media channels, sharing with songs about washing one’s hands.
The songs came from past videos of volunteers at Rwandan schools educating and singing songs with students about the importance of hygiene as part of Global Hand Washing Day.
Yasuko Yoshig, a graduate of Japan’s Ritsumeikan University, traveled to a Rwandan school with her group of volunteers to promote the importance of hand washing, according this article from the Japan International Cooperation Agency,.
That fact that Rwandan officials shared these songs highlights how much more attention is being placed on the message that the Rwandan government is trying to spread to all of its citizens. This concept of reminding people to wash their hands through songs is now being used more often around the world rather than just Rwanda.
Handwashing Campaigns in the United States
On March 15, 2020 the lead singer of the Las Vegas-based rock band The Killers (Brandon Flowers) posted a video of him singing the group’s hit song, Mr. Brightside, while washing his hands. Flowers later explained on Twitter that people could sing this song for 20 seconds while washing their hands, in order to be both hygienic and entertained.
His post led to songs from other famous artists including Mariah Carey and Gloria Gaynor.
Liquid Networks and Hand Washing
Steven Johnson, author of “Where Good Ideas Come from: The Natural History of Innovation,” brings up the idea of liquid networks, or when people knowingly or unknowingly create innovative concepts by sharing their ideas with others. This would result in others seeing one concept and either copying or building upon it to create a new invention.
Rwanda’s hand washing songs are a perfect example of liquid networks. With music artists using this method to remind people to wash their hands, it only shows how Rwanda understands that using music as a creative tool to keep citizens safe is will help a great deal with flattening the curve.
Even though millions around the world are strongly advised to stay at home, there are people who have been deemed as essential workers and need to go outside to perform their tasks. This situation, however, brings large amounts of risks towards many essential workers due their higher chances of being infected with COVID-19 just for being outside of their homes.
What the many governments around the world have done to help people who still need to go outside is only advising people to wear protective masks and gloves while also staying six feet apart from one another.
While these pieces of information are vital for people who still need to leave home, it does not help make sure people are consistently staying clean with their hands or even their face.
In Rwanda, the government also had advised its citizens to wear protective clothes when they leave their homes.
The government planned and quickly put in place the innovative idea of placing portable hand washing sinks in the many cities and towns of Rwanda. Taking inspiration from New York City’s pay phones, the portable sinks are placed in the most heavily populated areas, like the capital of Kigali in Rwanda, and are free for anyone to use at any time.
In an article written for U.S. News & World Report, writer Giulia Paravicini detailed the many areas that contain numerous portable sinks.
“Banks, shops, restaurants as well as bars, have all been equipped with portable wash sinks and customers seem keen to use them,” Paravicini said.
With Rwanda having these portable sinks set up, it has become one of the few countries to contain barely any confirmed cases in the country.
“Rwanda has not recorded any cases of the virus so far but neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo confirmed its first case on Tuesday, making it eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa hit by the epidemic,” Paravicini said.
United States
In early April, the U.S. took inspiration from Rwanda by placing portable sinks in stores all across Montana.
According to an NBC Montana article, several stores in Hamilton, Montana had begun installing portable sinks in stores to encourage people to wash their hands.
Once again, liquid networks comes to play with the Montana following Rwanda. This implies that the Montana Government may had seen the benefits from Rwanda’s sinks and decide to do the same.
This will benefit both countries since Rwanda sharing this concept with others will cause more countries to network and share their ideas with one another on how to combat this virus.
Originally published at https://medium.com on May 4, 2020.
