the women of Chelkarwar
 
It took one hour to drive from Herat City to Kushk District and another 1.5 hours to drive from Kushk District center to Chelkarwar Village. I put together the hygiene and sanitation promotion module therefore I needed to visit at least one of the hygiene and sanitation group, meet the women and hear their feedback myself. For 14 weeks these women have been meeting once a week with Shafiqa to talk about hygiene. The approach is participatory and veers away from the often teacher-student interaction. Pictures are used to pique their interest and a discussion follows where they share their ideas within the group. In the process of sharing they learn the hygiene practices. There is ownership to the learning so they are more willing and eager to adopt the practice. Below is a story that I wrote intended for the CRS website to promote the work that we do in Afghanistan. CHEL KHARWAR, KUSHK, AFGHANISTAN - “Salam Alekum. Chetor asten? (Peace be upon you. How are you?).” The women are meeting once a week with Shafiqa Mahmoudi, a CRS field staff, to discuss hygiene and sanitation practices. “We like getting together. We meet and talk about hygiene,” says one woman. “We like the pictures that show cleanliness and don’t like the pictures that show dirt,” says another. One women in the group held her baby up and proudly pointed out how clean her baby is. “Before, we just wipe our children’s face with a cloth, now we give them baths every other day,” she explains. Shafiqa later explained that before she started the hygiene training the women would come to the meeting wearing dirty clothes. Now they wear clean clothes, keep their fingernails short and clean and give their children frequent baths. “We used to get our drinking water from the stream. The animals also drink from the stream. I learned that boiling water before drinking prevents sickness in my family,” says one woman in the group. “CRS dug up two wells for our village and we take water from the well now.” she said. CRS in partnership with the community constructs drinking water structures such as wells and piped spring water. CRS also provide hygiene and sanitation promotion training to ensure optimum health benefits of clean water. Pictures are used to attract participant’s interest and generate discussion on hygiene and sanitation practices rather than a teacher-student interaction of delivering hygiene messages. “We learned that flies transfer feces to our food,” says one participant. “We also burn our trash and use nets for our windows to keep the flies out,” says another. “We also understand that it is better to use toilets but we need toilets in our village otherwise we cannot do the things that we have learned about hygiene and sanitation,” adds another. CRS approach to sanitation is demand driven. The hygiene and sanitation promotion training raises awareness on the value of using a latrine. CRS support the building of latrines after the community understands and expresses the need for one. “When the hygiene training is finished we would like to attend some literacy courses. We also want to set up self-help projects like other groups so we can use our skills like carpet weaving and sewing.” expressed one woman. “Please tell your office, Shafiqa” she said. The women were initially reluctant to have their pictures taken but as soon as they saw their photograph on the LCD viewer of my digital camera, they jostled each other to have their photographs taken. Click on the link to Afghan Portraits above for new entries to the album. My consultancy work with CRS Afghanistan has been very fun and very rewarding, especially after meeting the women of Chelkarwar Village. Interestingly, other CRS country programs in the region are noticing the work I am doing. For one, CRS Pakistan has invited me to help build their partner’s capacity in doing hygiene and sanitation promotion. The work will be very interesting and challenging as well. For starters, CRS Pakistan works through partners or local NGOs whereas my experience with CRS Afghanistan is more hands-on. I will need to tear down my assumptions on how hygiene and sanitation promotion should be done and rebuild them to fit the context of Pakistan. Anyhow, it should be fun.
Jul 31, 2007