Daily Handwashing for an Ailment – free Life (DHaAL)
DHaAL is joint initiative of Assam Sarba Shiksha Abhijan, Centre for Environment Education & UNICEF.
Objective: Low cost Group Handwashing stations (GHS) developed primarily for hand washing before mid-day meal for elementary schools along with a system of operation and maintenance.
Major linkage of DHaAL:
- SDG Goal – III, IV & VI
- RTE Act, 2009
- MDM Scheme
- SBSV Campaign
Beneficiaries:
- Teachers, Students, Mothers, SMC members
- Scale up of the Programme to 26800 Schools
- Exposure and capacity building of State SSA Missions of Eight North East States
- GHS is replicated by Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat Karnataka & Maharashtra
Milestones Achieved:
- As a result of DHaAL, Assam became the first state in India to declare SVP .
- The Manthan Award Declared DHaAL as one of the top eight impactful project in south Asian Health and Well Being sector
- Ministry of External Affairs, GoI declared DHaAL as a winner of Social Innovation contest.
- Swachh Bharat Swachh Vidyalaya Handbook included DHaAL GHS design for nation wide scaling up.
Impact: DHaAL GHS reduces time taken for group handwashing before MDM by 90% and reduce water consumption. Due to project intervention, soap availability in project schools increased by 92%.
The implementation model:
The DHaAL implementation model broadly involve four spheres :
- DHaAL group hand washing station demonstration in pilot schools
- Training and capacity building of key stakeholders state wide
- Education and awareness creation among children and community and
- Based on the learning from above three spheres, engaging in policy advocacy
Scale up / Replication
- Govt. of Assam Scaled up the model to 26,800 elementary schools,
- DHaAL concept of group hand washing is now getting replicated in Karnataka, Bihar, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra