Somaliland (2013):Assessment of a School-based Hand Washing Campaign Study

Most schools in Somaliland do not have hand washing places. Availability of water and soap in schools is rare. PSI Somaliland has implemented hand washing campaign targeting elementary and intermediate students of eight schools in Hargeisa in late last year. The students were trained in December 2012 and January 2013 and they were expected to continue the campaign in their schools and in their local community. The campaign aimed to increase students' knowledge of and the correct way of washing hands, improve student hand washing rate and help students construct hand washing facility in their schools and homes to keep their community healthy.This program was conducted as a pilot, and information was needed to assess the successes and failures and feasibility of expansion. This assessment is to explore students' participation in the hand washing campaign. The assessment also explored the attitude of school management and Ministry of Education (MOE) and MOH's supervisors towards the campaign. The interviewers visited all the eight schools that participated in the PSI hand washing training. From each school, six trained students were interviewed. The principal and a teacher from each school were also interviewed. One supervisor from the Ministry of Education (MOE) and a public health officer in the Ministry of Health (MoH) were also interviewed. In total, the people participated in this assessment were 48 students, 7 principals, 8 teachers, one MOH supervisor and one MOE supervisor.