Guatemala and WASH in 2017: Results, Observations and Reflections
By: Christopher Stanfill, Ph.D., Director of Learning & Evaluation & Aldo D’Agostino, Guatemala M&E Manager
Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programs are globally-recognized efforts that, when implemented at the school level, provide a safe and healthy environment for students by decreasing students’ risk of illness and, ultimately, giving them the opportunity to be present in the classroom more. PoP has been committed to WASH, and other types of sanitation programming (i.e. sanitation, hygiene, and infant nutrition efficacy, or SHINE), in our Guatemalan schools since 2012, and we’ve educated more than 10,000 students in health behaviors over the course of our involvement. That’s more than 10,000 children in Guatemala who are now at a lower risk for becoming sick because of unclean water; more than 10,000 children who are now less likely to miss critical school days due to illness and get more out of their time in the classroom.
Our WASH program is straightforward: provide the infrastructure (e.g., toilets), distribute water filters, and educate students and communities on healthy behaviors (e.g., handwashing). Evaluating the effectiveness of our program includes both monitoring our facilities to ensure they are functioning well, as well as observing student behaviors. During the 2017 school year, results indicate that (1) our distributed water filters are working and more than 96% of PoP students are drinking clean water because of these filters, (2) 90% of toilets are functioning with minimal maintenance issues, and (3) student behaviors are improving by washing with soap after using the toilet.
For example, we’ve found that handwashing rates differ greatly in the two regions where we work. One potential explanation for this could be the exposure to better infrastructure (e.g. running water) in areas of Boca Costa (BC) compared to Quiche. It could also be argued that the lower baseline values (i.e. pre-PoP intervention) are a result of a lack of exposure to WASH concepts throughout the Quiche region.
Influencing health behaviors takes time and it all starts with providing the basics. There is a saying in the public health practice to “make the healthy choice the easy choice.” One way to interpret this is to alter one’s environment in a way that normalizes the ideal or desired behavior. On the contrary, we want to create an environment where not washing your hands with soap after using the toilet seems and feels abnormal. Again, this takes time. Moving forward in Guatemala, our evaluation efforts will evolve to become more focused on monitoring. This means tracking progress over multiple school years rather than making baseline and endline comparisons within a single school year. We are confident that our infrastructure functions well and that students drink filtered water when filters are provided. Therefore, our team in Guatemala will stop collecting this data and focus primarily on behavior change. Reinforcement of health behaviors will continue to be carried out by our WASH team in Guatemala, and the M&E team will observe students behaviors twice a year and track progress over time.
WASH programs are implemented by a diverse range of international development organizations around the globe because it is straightforward and we know it works. This does not mean it is always easy, but high impact is achieved through a simple recipe of services. PoP will continue to provide safe and healthy learning environments through our WASH programming and strive towards long-lasting health behaviors.
