Projects to Promote Education of Sanitation

Today, we introduce JEN’s project to promote education of sanitation in public schools in Jordan.

First, we introduce general sanitary facilities of schools in Jordan.
The popular style of toilets in schools is the squat type; toilets which people squat over. In Jordan, they call this type of toilet “Eastern toilet” in contrast to the Western toilets with seats. There is no toilet paper in the toilets. There are faucets on left walls in students’ bathrooms and they draw water by ladles. Some toilets for teachers have small showers on the wall. The reason students’ toilets do not have shower is the lack of water resources. As Jordan is located in the Middle East, the most shortage of water resources  region in Asia, it needs to save water. In some schools, water is available only once a week.

【Eastern toilet】

In washing places in schools, there are faucets side by side. It is also popular in Japan, but in public schools in Jordan, each well mouth has a cover with a lock and the school can control the number of faucets students can use. Teachers can lock all the faucets; it is a very unique system, isn’t it?

Safety and Sanitation of facilities of sanitation for students depend on self-disciplined activity by schools.

The following are problems about safety and sanitation.

(1) Students in upper grades make mischief against those in lower grades.

(2) Some students do not flush toilets (they do not know how to use toilets) and other students hesitate to use toilets in schools. As they do not flush toilets frequently, teachers and staffs in schools cannot manage to keep the toilets clean and they think it is this country’s culture that people cannot keep toilets clean. Toilets which are not flushed look insanitary.

To solve (1), teachers in some schools make lists of students who go to toilets frequently because of their health problems. For other students, upper grade students and lower grade ones are allowed to go to toilets on different time. In some other schools, students get permission from teachers and go to toilets with a name plate of the teacher.

For the problem (2), the ‘name plate rule’ is effective, but many schools are not carrying out this action and have yet to solve this problem. Moreover, public schools in Jordan have cleaning staff and parents of students strictly prohibit their children from cleaning toilets in their schools. Therefore, JEN’s activity to promote sanitation not only teach teachers and children how to wash hands with soap but also shows them how to use facilities of water and sanitation that JEN’s engineers have fixed.

【The session of sanitation for girls in junior high school】

【photo: Monitoring of washroom JEN fixed in school】

Through the sanitation promotion in schools, we do not only teach daily sanitation rules but also plan fun events based on the World Washing Hands Day, the World Toilets Day and so on.

What is more, there are a lot of mosques for worship in Jordan and a big part of the people regard religion as a part of their lives. The staff of JEN often visit mosques near schools and share the importance of education about sanitation with priests to promote the wide scale of the activity, also with schools.

【Explaining about the education of sanitation to the priests in mosques near schools】

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