Written By Anousone Ngonephetsy – TerraCare Team Leader
On March 9, the TerraClear sales promotion team traveled to Dakcheung District in southern Laos to give lessons on health and hygiene to villagers. These villagers received TerraClear filters through the TerraCare program which gives subsidized filters to poor families throughout southern Laos. During the training, it was amazing to see how the villagers were excited about the trainings and the new information they were learning.
It was obvious through the enthusiastic participation during the question and answer time that the villagers were learning and interested in the topic of health and hygiene. The lessons were taught by Ms. Pong, the TerraClear representative, who taught in the local ethnic language of the villagers. As the lessons continued, the number of participants increased throughout the time as more villagers heard about the training. As the villagers learned, they asked a lot of questions about the water-borne diseases, disease transmission and the positive effects of clean water in a community. This was especially important as the area is a diarrhea-prone area with a lot of open defecation.
One part of the presentation is introducing the concept of a tippy tap handwashing station, a stand-alone place where a family can wash their hands without contamination, using a self-tipping water source and soap. After the lesson, one of the villagers built a tippy tap station next to their home. She said, “From TerraCare lessons, I learned how to make a station where we can wash our hands in my house.” This was amazing and made the team very proud. That family saw the significance of the lessons learned and were able to put them into practice, which benefited both the individual and the family. Even more amazing, it also benefited the community, because the handwashing station was put in a public place, and the passers-by, who had previously used only washbasins, could now see a better way of handwashing that did not recontaminate the user by dipping back into used water.
Many of the villagers who passed by the tippy tap used it to wash their hands and then asked the team if they could build the tippy tap, too. One family extended the design, asking if they could build it using a tree instead of being free standing. They said, “We are very happy. Can we build it on a tree near the house?” The whole training team was very happy and said yes, explaining more and more about the tippy tap handwashing station.
If you want to learn more about the Tippy Tap, read on at https://www.techxlab.org/solutions/tippytap-org-tippy-tap#:~:text=The%20Tippy%20Tap%20is%20a,soap%20suspended%20by%20a%20string.
