press releases
70,000 People Reduce Risk Of Disease, Improve Hygiene With USAID Help
03/31/2006Islamabad - Nearly 70,000 people in the Mansehra and Battagram Districts in North West Frontier Province are reducing their risk of disease and following safe sanitation practices following a targeted hygiene education campaign sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Before the October 8 earthquake, local access to information about hygiene and health practices was limited. In the quake’s aftermath, damaged infrastructure, destroyed homes and dislocated people made personal hygiene even more of a challenge.
To check the risk of disease and increase public awareness of health and hygiene, USAID funded a program with partner International Medical Corps to provide families with hygiene supplies and to educate them in good sanitation practices.
More than 730 male and female community members were chosen to represent their communities at a two-day hygiene training workshop. These representatives then returned to their home villages and presented five hours of training to 15 to 20 families on hygiene practices. This course taught them the causes of disease transmission and the importance of disease prevention through hand-washing, safe food preparation and proper waste disposal.
To date, 3,000 trained households have received a kit with soap, towels, cotton cloth, combs, shampoo, a plastic mug and a covered bucket. They also received two 20-liter plastic containers to store drinking water safely. All hygiene kits will be delivered by the end of April.
Trainers say many people have improved their personal sanitation habits because of these supplies. "If you have no home, how can you have hygiene?" explained Mundroo Bibi, a community trainer in Mansehra District’s Upper Mittikot village.
The education campaign has greatly increased hygiene awareness. "We weren’t aware of many of these techniques before the training," said Gulzar Bibi, a female community trainer from Upper Mittikot.
Yasmeen Shafiq, from the same village, agreed. "I used to eat vegetables without washing them," Shafiq said. Now a trained hygiene activist, Shafiq taught 30 women in her community how to clean raw food and safely dispose of garbage.
This USAID program will benefit nearly 70,000 people by the end of April. It demonstrates the U.S. commitment to improving health and sanitation practices in Pakistan’s earthquake-affected areas.
The United States, through USAID, is providing more than $1.5 billion in development assistance to Pakistan over the next five years to improve education, health, governance and economic growth. In addition, the United States has pledged a total of $510 million in earthquake relief and reconstruction efforts to assist the people of Pakistan and to support Pakistani government relief and reconstruction efforts.