A day in the life of
Bioye Ogunjobi,
Hygiene Promotion Officer, Benue Programme, WaterAid Nigeria.
"Normally, I arrive at WaterAid's office in Ankpa Quarters, Makurdi at 7.50am. I see if any mail needs urgent attention, look at my 'to do' list and have a cup of tea.
My daily 'to dos' range from meetings, facilitating workshops with partners, monitoring sanitation centres, attending community training and conducting research.
This often means driving for over an hour to our project areas in Oju and Obi, where our partners are based. Our partners are the Water and Sanitation Units (WASU) of the local government.
Sometimes I visit schools that are benefiting from our School Sanitation and Hygiene programme to see debates or drama events carried out by members of the hygiene clubs. We started this scheme as a pilot in one primary school two years ago.
Last year four further schools were selected for the project. Now, a year on, each school has a hygiene club holding meetings, debates, quizzes and drama events every month to promote good hygiene among pupils.
The health teachers and club coordinators have been trained in hygiene promotion to empower pupils to promote safe practices both at school and at home.
All the schools now have latrines that have been dug by older pupils and community members. The cost of the slabs was subsidised by the project.
One of the schools, Adede lyahor, is far away from the community water source and pupils wanted to have their own. However, because of the geology, underground water was scarce so the school, with a subsidy from the project, has built two large water jars for rainwater harvesting.
Much of the work we carry out is based on simple common sense ideas. The 'early morning call' that is now used in many communities is a good example of this. Here WASCOM (Water and Sanitation Committee) members sometimes use megaphones to preach the gospel of improved sanitation and hygiene practices to the community.
It takes place around 5am, which according to the communities, is the best time to ensure nobody misses the message. This complements the efforts of sanitation centre operators who try to boost the sales of sanitation materials and use megaphones to promote the construction and use of latrines.
Two years ago, WASCOM members suggested that a radio programme would be a good idea to reinforce important messages. Remembering a popular jingle from my youth I thought so too. The jingle I remembered promoted Maggi seasoning for cooking in my local language.
It was so captivating that every woman felt the only way to retain her husband's love was by using Maggi to cook! So we contracted a university lecturer to supervise WASU in the production of radio jingles.
Community members came up with messages, which were presented by WASU staff and WASCOM members as drama and jingles in the local (Igede) language. We now have two slots per week on Radio Benue, so every Igede-speaking person in Benue State will hear our hygiene promotion messages.
In the last year I have been a member of the committee which researches, documents and shares good practice with others working in water and sanitation.
So far we have produced two issue sheets - Targeting the Vulnerable and Small Scale Private Sector Partnerships. Very soon, two more will be produced - Working with the Local Government and Hygiene and Sanitation Promotion Activities.
When possible, I try and take lunch out of the office, and will go out to a local chop house to eat pounded yam with egusi soup and meat.
Since WaterAid works to empower local partner organisations, WASU is involved in the development of new techniques or systems and all major decisions.
We hold 'hygiene think-tank' meetings once a month to discuss current activities and problems. This reminds me of a Chinese saying - 'Wisdom is a Baobab tree which no man's hand can go round' - as by working together we have recommended many of the hygiene promotion activities that are now in use.
Almost every day, I look at our new hygiene promotion strategy to ensure that we are keeping in line.
This was developed two years ago, when we realised hygiene promotion activities in communities were declining. We found out this was because WASCOM members were over-worked, as community members were not ready to share their responsibilities. The excuse was that only the WASCOM was trained, so nobody else could promote hygiene.
Since then two major changes have been made:
Using volunteers in addition to WASCOMs is being trialled in three communities. The volunteers are trained in hygiene promotion techniques in order to promote good hygiene behaviour in the community and monitor households to see how well hygiene promotion is working.
We are also engaging local government health workers and working in partnership with a private (missionary) hospital to promote safe household drinking by providing plastic taps for pots through village outlets.
A recent evaluation of our programme showed that our new approaches are generally effective. However, they also made some recommendations, such as providing hygiene posters for WASCOM
to use in communities and engaging young girls in the community to monitor hygiene behaviour.
Some partners are already producing posters and community meetings are being scheduled to identify girls who can carry out monitoring.
If the day is not too hectic I manage to leave the office at 5pm, although if I have been out to project areas, I often return later than this. Once at home I reflect on the day, spend time with my wife and possibly do some studying before going to bed."
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