WatSan Action works with disadvantaged Indonesian communities to improve water & sanitation conditions through educational activities and participatory projects. To achieve this, we have structured our work into the following four programs:
-Developing awareness of practical means of improving water, sanitation, and waste conditions.
-Facilitating access to clean water and introducing household drinking water treatments.
-Promoting waste as a resource and proper solid waste management practices.
-Improving and developing latrines, in addition to drainage and infiltration methods.
PROGRAMS
Public Health
WatSan Action’s Public Health Promotion (PHP) Program works to increase awareness and action towards improving personal and environmental health & hygiene behaviors. PHP lays the educational foundation for the other WatSan Action programs. Educating community members about clean water, improved sanitation, and solid waste management is important to the sustainability of these programs.
Our team took the core messages from each program and developed an interactive lesson series. Related activities are also part of promoting these messages about the relation of hygiene habits to healthier lifestyles, for example. The messages are the same, though our activities and lessons are appropriately different for adults and kids.
For kids, we teach eleven messages in a structure of a “Kelas Bersih Sehat” field class, in addition to other related activities. With adults, we integrate these messages into a Kadres training class and also foster message-related activities, to stimulate further awareness and learning that will lead to healthier lives.
Clean Water
Waterborne diseases, specifically diarrhea, can be spread through water used to drink, prepare food, brush teeth, etc. According to Ministry of Health of Indonesia (2006), morbidity of diarrhea in Indonesia reached 42.3%. This can be reduced in part with effective interventions of hygiene behavior related to water handling, treatment and storage. Therefore, educating about clean water practices, in collaboration with our Clean Water Program, is particularly significant.
Solid Waste Management
The environmental conditions of the communities that we work with in Jakarta are amongst the poorest in the nation. There are more than 450 slum communities in Jakarta (based on 2004 data) where narrow unstructured homes are crowded with trash and bad odors for example, with an obvious lack and need for access to clean water and other public facilities.
The purpose of the Solid Waste Management Program is to empower communities to combat their environmental challenges of managing their solid waste with replicable small-scale solutions both on the household and community levels. We accomplish this through educating the communities about the lifestyle benefits of solid waste management, demonstrating the proper practices of the 3 R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle), and teaching them skills that will enable them to use their waste as a resource.
Improved Sanitation
Open defecation and poor drainage is common in the communities we work serve. Interventions for improved sanitation can potential reduce diarrheal disease 32% (Ministry of Health, 2006). From the KAP survey of four of the communities we work with (conducted by Kenzo Fry, 2008), regardless of whether or not there is a latrine, only 19% wash their hands after defecation. This is telling of how imperative the “software” is to support the “hardware” of projects, meaning that improved sanitation promotion (ISP) lessons and activities are as important as building the sanitation infrastructure. The role of WatSan Action’s PHP related to ISP is to educate both children and adults about why and how to improve their sanitation conditions.
