Handwashing Day is Celebrated in Trojes

Author: Kaylee Pratt, Intern

On October 15, Pure Water for the World (PWW) along with many other non-profits, marked another successful year of celebrating Global Handwashing day. This was an opportunity for PWW to increase awareness and understanding about the importance of washing hands with soap and water as an easy way to prevent the spreading of diseases.

For the week of the 15^th, PWW organized a competition between three schools in Trojes, el Paraiso, Honduras. The end goal was to get the creativity flowing among students, teachers and community, with their main objective being hand washing.  After evaluating the activities developed by the community in one day, the school with the most original content and/or the best content was selected to celebrate the day with PWW.

The three schools chosen were Colinas de Rio Arriba, Poza Redonda and Esperanza de Capire. For these schools PWW intervened with latrines, biosand filters, hand washing stations and hygiene education. At the end of the week, the winning school was selected and PWW arrived at that school on the 15^th.

 

The school of Colinas de Rio Arriba won the competition. Once PWW arrived at the school the events took off. Throughout the day there were a variety of activities taking place such as explaining the importance of washing hands and the 4 steps to wash them properly, teaching a song about washing hands, a piñata filled with hygiene items, a game called soap bubbles, drawings of hygiene scenes and much more.

PWW takes full advantage of days such as Global Handwashing Day, because it is a great way to encourage handwashing not only to students, but to the whole community.  The end goal is to use these activities to improve hygiene habits not on this day only, but throughout the year.