Soap Recyling and Hygiene Promotion for school kids, Ethiopia

Project name: Soap Recyling and Hygiene Promotion for school kids

Project location: This project will be implemented in Ethiopia Addis Ababa City Administration at 15 governmental primary schools located in four Sub City Administrations. The school will be selected based a formative assessment.

Website: http://beautifulmindsethiopia.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Beautiful-Minds-Ethiopia
 

Project description:

In most of developing countries like Ethiopia diarrheal disease is the main cause of child mortality and Trachoma is the main cause of blindness although these two leading problems can be easily prevented through a mere hand and face washing with soap. Thus, this project aims to enhance proper hand and face washing with soap in primary schools using business model. In Addis Ababa, most of children in primary schools have limited practice of hand washing with soap at critical times due to absence of soap. Particularly, the case gets worse for children in government schools, due to low socioeconomic status of families. There are NGO’s and government health extension workers promoting and spreading hygiene education but if this is not complemented with access to soap it can pose challenge to the expected behavioral change and practice. Therefore, the project intends to address these problems through recycling leftover soap from hotels and spa centers and produce soap to provide for school kids with low price as compared to current market price. In the meantime, the project also aims to raise awareness and shift the attitude among the students and other school community through child friendly and interactive training and mass education approaches. The project will highly engage students, School management, and parent teacher association throughout the process which is a key factor for smooth and successful implementation.

Goal and purpose of the project:

Purpose
The project is aimed at reducing child mortality and morbidity due to communicable diseases like diarrhea and Trachoma that can be easily prevented using hand/face washing with soap. This project will specially help School girls to attend classes and feel comfortable during their menses due to the availability of soap for hand washing after touching and changing their menstrual pads. Besides, the project will supply soap with affordable price through recycling leftover soaps. At the same time, employment opportunities will be created for 10 low income single mothers and the project also contributes for clean environment through recycling soap that end up in landfills and pollute environment. We believe that the project will also benefit hotels by enabling them to exercise their corporate social responsibility and save them money, time and energy that could be wasted to discard these leftover soaps.
In addition to this, it will also enhance the culture of waste reuse and recycling among community members and government in general.
Goal
The project will contribute to children's health and education by addressing more than 15,000 school kids in 15 government primary schools through promoting proper hand/face washing with recycled and re-produced leftover soaps from hotel

Motivation of the applicant / applicant team:

As a social entrepreneurs we all are driven by a motivation that it is possible to impact the most pressing global challenges with the inclusive business model in which all parties win. We have seen the challenges of our society, when children die or quit schooling due to communicable illnesses when children become blind while simple solutions still available but neglected in the daily routines.
Even we are at our early stage, we are full with motivations and energy that keep us together as a team and to see beyond that can transform our society.
Every 30 seconds a child dies due to Diarrhea (WHO, 2013) that could have been prevented with simple hand washing with soap. Among this, 75% of these deaths happen in the 15 poorest countries, where people can't afford soap and hand hygiene education is not prioritized. A simple proper hand washing with soap cuts diarrheal transmission by half. Moreover, Trachoma is the main cause of blindness where 100% of it can be prevented through effective face wash with soap. According to Addis Ababa Education Bureau 2015 report, only 2% of schools out of 455 government school use hand washing with soap.
These figures and scenarios are not only problematic but they are realities that keep us awake and motivate us to devote every day for the success of our initiative. Furthermore, International NGOs have played their part in transforming communities but for a lasting change to happen, local capacity should be enhanced through the involvement of private sectors and social entrepreneurs who are always within the reach of community.These eliminates the dependency of communities to donations granted from these INGOs and creates a sense of ownership and self-esteem that the problems within the community should only and only be solved by the community members themselves.

Use of prize money:

Our organization has sound financial system. Thus, effective and efficient financial utilization be assured. We will utilize the prize (grant) for the project that impact school children's health and education through preventing communicable diseases like diarrhea and Trachoma that are the main cause of child mortality and illness. 15 government primary schools will be targeted and more than 15,000 school boys and girls will be benefited. The money will be spent on hygiene promotion trainings and mass education in 15 targeted schools in Addis Ababa City administration to bring behavioral change and hygienic practices. BCC/IEC materials will be produced and sanitation marketing training targeting School management and parent teacher associations (PTAs) from the partner Schools will be conducted. Orientation workshop with government stakeholders is also on the list of activities. Destitute women and single mothers who will be employed as soap recyclers, will be benefited from the project. Significant amount of money will be invested on leftover soap recycling and production to supply for target school with affordable price as most of the children are from low income families. The prize will be also utilized to monitor and evaluate the project, to cover administrative costs. The revenue generated from the sales will be utilized to replicate and sustain the project.