Blog, General news
Malawi – only 14 percent of people in Phalombe use soap and water to wash hands
Dec
World Toilet Day commemoration reveals lack of WASH compliance
Concerns were raised at a recent World Toilet Day commemoration in Malawi when it was revealed that only 14 in every hundred people wash their hands with soap and water after going to the toilet in the Phalombe district, according to a recent report on the Malawi 24 website.
The article by Chikondi Magalasi stated that the lack of effective hand washing was revealed by Phalombe District Health Officer (DHO) Ketwin Kondowe during the World Toilet Day celebrations at Linguni Primary School.
The DHO is quoted in the article as saying
“Those who wash hands is at 54 percent but hand washing using soap we are at 14 percent.”
He went on, says the article, to emphasise that the ministry and other key stakeholders are firmly advocating the WASH approach.
World Toilet Day is about inspiring action to tackle the global sanitation crisis. Today, 4.5 billion people live without a household toilet that safely disposes of their waste.
WASH focus
The UNICEF website describes WASH as follows:-
“WASH is the collective term for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. Due to their interdependent nature, these three core issues are grouped together to represent a growing sector. While each a separate field of work, each is dependent on the presence of the other. For example, without toilets, water sources become contaminated; without clean water, basic hygiene practices are not possible.”
14 percent of Phalombe people wash hands with soap »
Effective hand washing – even in the remotest areas of Africa
The TEAL WashStand is especially designed to provide an effective soap and water hand wash – wherever it’s needed.
Being robust, easy to clean and easy to transport, it just needs to be filled with clean water and positioned where it will provide the maximum benefit for any local community. It need no electricity or mains water supply to function effectively.
The WashStand uses water very sparingly and is able to deliver 40 effective washes per filling.
Dirty water is stored in a separate tank and can easily be emptied away.
More about the TEAL WashStand »