Inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) conditions exist in a range of settings, from farm households to permanent homes in villages, towns and in large cities. The ASDEV  WASH program provides expertise and interventions aimed at saving lives and reducing illness by improving local access to healthy and safe water, adequate sanitation, and improved hygiene. The ASDEV WASH program works on long-term prevention and control measures for improving health, reducing poverty, and improving socio-economic development as well as responding to local emergencies and outbreaks of life-threatening illnesses.  These improvements reduce the deadly impact of  WASH-related diseases ranging from typhoid fever to cholera to hepatitis. ASDEV WASH work is focused in some areas and involves partnerships with other Ministries of Health, non-governmental agencies, and other international agencies.

Making Water Safe to Drink and Use

Promoting safe water through Asdev’s Clean  Water System (CWS), which allows individuals,farmers, health workers, and schoolteachers to treat and safely store water in homes, farms, health facilities, and schools, and  Water Safety Measures (WSMs), which identify water quality threats in community water systems and water utilities, while implementing solutions to those threats.

Improving Hygiene and Sanitation

Improving the efficacy, sustainability, and integration of hygiene and sanitation interventions among the rural poor communities and it’s available  institutions, such as schools.

Institutional Latrine Provision, Convenience for Young  Girls In the Northern Region, 15 schools that have received  an institutional latrine are seeing immensely positive impacts for its female students. Last year, Nyensung primary School, located  in Gushegu district, received a  latrine through the Asdev WASH Project. Today, some  of  the  school’s students can  testify to the positive change they have experienced before and after receiving the latrine.

Before the latrine  was constructed, some female students said they would venture  into the  nearby bush to find  a  spot  to  go.  “We  would  just  go  around  and  see any convenient place,” they said.  “If you  want to use the toilet, there were kindergarten [students] there; it was so  full, so we didn‘t have privacy.” They said that their classmates would spend up to 10  minutes looking for a secluded  space in the nearby  bush, which  stretched from  the school’s immediate land boundary. Now,  these  students have an institutional latrine,  which provides a convenient, private space to  take care  of their sanitation  and some female  hygiene  needs. The structure is divided into two sides by a cement wall; one side has two  latrines (for  males), and the other side has the two latrines with the changing  room (for females).

Now, she doesn’t have to worry  about missing  class time to  take care  of her needs.  “It’s improved things for  us.”