The project "Orientation on Total Sanitation and Behavioral Change to Schools, Communities and Local Stakeholders in Bardiya" is the part of School Health and Hygiene Programme (SHHP) which is being implemented in 31 VDCs of Bardiya district covering 263 public schools. The programme is designed to support the declaration of District Water and Sanitation Hygiene Coordination Committee (D-WASH-CC) Bardiya to declare the district open defecation free (ODF) by 2015.
Renaissance Society Nepal (RSN) and Mobilization for Integrated Development (SMID) Bardiya received financial and technical support from UN-Habitat under Global Sanitation Fund (GSF) to implement this programme. The programme will be implemented till December end 2013.
The programme was a response to fulfill the sanitation and hygiene gaps of 70 percent in Bardiya district by capacitating stakeholders and mobilizing them to sensitize communities for safe disposal of excreta and to adopt proper hygiene and sanitation behaviors.
This project has been successful in creating enabling environment for the promotion of sanitation and hygiene services and related behavior change of the communities and students in through the mobilization of the capacitated human resources (12,729 persons trained) and 263 child clubs including their resource centers.
The grant is one of the important components of GSF programme which is intended to build the capacity of different stakeholders including schools and mobilize them to contribute in achieving the open defecation free (ODF) status in the project area and complement other GSF/UN-Habitat sub-grants.
The programme follows the School Led Total Sanitation (SLTS) approach under broad framework of the Sanitation and Hygiene Master Plan -2011 (SHMP-2011). The SHMP has clearly stated that ODF should be the bottom line of all sanitation interventions.
The programme covers range of activities covering orientation/ sensitizations, mobilization for creating enabling environment for promoting sustainable sanitation and hygiene behavior for contributing in ODF status declaration through schools catchment areas.
Similarly, the programme activities activated communities to create wider community demand for improved sanitation, stimulate community action for achieving ODF situation, ensure social inclusion through universal access, promote sustainable behavioral change, scale up sanitation services at scale and back up sanitation in the form of social movement through community's own initiatives.