The theme for this year’s event was UNITE for Universal Hand Hygiene. The event was graced
by County Government oficials from the Health Department, Local administrators, Local CSOs
and Nawiri team. Leaders from across the divide urged the residents to take control of their health by considering
the 5 critical times of Hand washing, saying, 80% of common illnesses can be prevented through
regular and proper hand washing Nawrir through its WASH project had recently spearheaded the Community Led Total Sanitation
(CLTS) initiative where residents are trained to act by constructing latrines using locally available
resources. 20 CLTSs had since been constructed and in use by the community members.
The leaders and community members including women and school children thanked Nawiri and
the County government for their initiative to lead the fight against illnesses among the community
of Lontolio. The head teacher of Lontolio was particularly grateful for the Nawiri led interventions and asked
for more support for the school explaining how difficult it is to embrace the ideas of regular hand
washing when the school has no water sources for cooking and drinking leave alone hand washing.
“Right now, we have no water at all for the school. We totally rely on the water fetched by the
children from their own homes, for our cooking and washing in the school”. With such a scarce
commodity, the last thing one can think of is water for the hand washing boots.” He added.