Health and Sanitation

In many villages in Nepal, people live lives that are unsophisticated. As we work, we find many villages of two to three hundred people that do not have simple toilet facilities. Though the villagers continue to live as they did for hundreds of years, due to rising populations and increased access that not only bring benefits but diseases as well, we see that modern sanitary practices need to be introduced and brought into practice. This is why we insist that the reservoirs and water distribution systems that we put in place are away from sources that may contaminate drinking water.

Wherever we are asked to repair, construct, or support schools and community houses, we assure that we build toilets that have access to clean water. We talk to teachers, community leaders, and children and share with them the need for proper use of toilets, the need for clean clothes and regular washing, and the importance of disinfectants and safe sanitary habits. We encourage better diets and introduce seeds and saplings that will offer essentail vitamins and explain to the villagers what each food item is and what it does for us.

In 2005, Shanti Griha supported a health and nutrition camp in Godawari village. The health camp serviced more than 280 people and provided free check-ups as well as information on healthier living and eating habits. Proper care for very young children, the very old, and women who were pregnant was particularly stressed by the effort.

In several places we have installed drainage systems so waste water does not collect around homes and communities. In addition, sewer canals have also been constructed. In Kapilvastu, we started building drainage system from 2003 and at presentl most of the villages in Dubia VDC have been covered with this facility. More than 80 toilets have been built by Shanti Griha and the villagers have built about 30 toilets on their own. Each toilet is used by four to five families. Similarly, in other villages, people have become aware of the importance of proper health and hygiene and have started building toilets on their own. Similarly in Birendranagar two toilets were built with the support from Richardstraße School and Kinderhilswerk für die Dritte Welt.The people have slowly developed the habit of using toilets; the roadside and tree-side toilets are on the decline.

Inefficient cooking stoves results in high consumption of fuelwood resulting over pressure to the forest and traditional stoves are poorly ranked in environmental aspect. And in most villages of Nepal the houses are poory ventilated and smoke from the stove stays in the room. The Improved Smokeless Stove" is designed to consume less fuel and save cooking time, convenient in cooking process and creates smokeless environment in the kitchen and reduction in the volume of smoke produced during cooking against the traditional stove. In 2006, three Shanti Griha personnel were trained in the mechanism and construction of “Improved Smokeless Cooking Stove”; we have already started to train the villagers in Chitwan, Dhading, and Kaski, slowly we will take this program to all our project areas in order to replace open fires.