Sanitation & Cleanliness for a Healthy Environment
Sanitation and Cleanliness for a Healthy Environment
Asenisman ak Pwopwete Pou Yon Anviwònman Sen
Author: Jeff Conant
Publisher: The Hesperian Foundation
This book addresses the different sanitation and hygiene needs of women and men. It gives communities information about how significant sanitation improvements can be made by better use of indigenous skills and local resources. Communities are offered a choice of affordable, safe, and environmentally sound sanitation alternatives. This book is designed to stimulate communities to take charge of their sanitation development for a better life.
Keeping clean and disposing of waste are necessary for good health. If waste is not taken care of in a safe way, it can pollute the environment and cause serious health problems, such as diarrhea, worms, cholera, and bladder infections. Many of these problems can be prevented through:
personal cleanliness (hygiene) — washing hands, bathing, and wearing clean clothes.
public cleanliness (sanitation) — using clean and safe toilets, keeping water sources clean, and disposing of garbage safely.
This book has information about both personal and public cleanliness including instructions on how to build safe toilets. All of the toilets described in this chapter will dispose of human waste so it does not cause health problems. Some of the toilets have the added benefit of turning this waste into fertilizer for farmers to use in their fields.
Sanitation and Cleanliness for a Healthy Environment is now available in English, Kreyòl, Spanish, and French.
48 pgs.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Promoting sanitation
What people want from toilets
How does poor sanitation lead to health problems?
Diarrhea and dehydration
Hand-washing with soap and water
Community education activity: Preventing diarrhea
Planning for sanitation
Drawing for discussion: Threats to good health
Women and men have different sanitation needs
Community discussion activity: Removing the barriers to sanitation for women
Access for disabled children and adults
Sanitation for children’s health
Sanitation for cities and towns
Sanitation for emergencies
Toilet choices
Closed pit toilets
Ventilated improved toilets (VIP)
Ecological toilets
Simple compost toilet for tree planting
2 pit compost toilet
Urine-diverting dry toilets
Urine fertilizer
Pour-flush pit toilets
Community education activity: Sanitation steps to healthy communities
List of difficult words
