Hygiene but a 'tap' away in Cambodia

Recognizing COVID-19’s burden on Cambodia’s health system, the importance of handwashing in reducing and preventing COVID-19 transmission, Thrive Networks/East Meets West Foundation (TN/EMWF) has been focusing on increasing access to hand washing facilities and raising sanitation and hygiene awareness among the most vulnerable groups identified under the Women-led Output Based Aid (WOBA) project. The teams have been very busy last month, while keep safe and maintaining physical distancing:

• On April 3, 2020,  they provided TOT Covid-19 prevention and response hands-on training to government officers and field team staff and volunteers in collaboration with Ministry of Rural Development and provincial counterparts.

Training includes demonstrations for hand washing,  and distribution of  mobile hand washing devices with tap, soap and leaflets to GESI poor households  so they can wash hands properly and regularly before entering their houses.

• From  April 6-24, 2020, they provided Covid-19 prevention and response hands-on training and education to partners in Kratie, Prey Veng, Pursat  Kampong Speu, Kampong Chhnang, Kampot, and Tbong Khmum  provinces. They identified 2,000 GESI poor and poor households and provided them with 2,000 mobile hand washing devices, 4,000 bars of soap and 4,000 leaflets.
• (The government defines GESI as households under ID Poor1 and 2 groups, who have family members with disability, children under-five, female-headed households, widow or single parent households, and elderly households). 

Thrive's plans for May is to follow-up and verify 30% of the households  to ensure that they are using the facilities and provide any supportive supervision. They also plan to install five public hand washing facilities on major national roads in collaboration with the Ministry of Rural Development.

It is exciting to see the thorough and responsive work being done by our partners to ensure that we leave no one behind, especially during the COVID-19 response. Well done to team Thrive, we look forward to learning more!