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To overcome the problems related to water supply and sanitation, OSRA has been implementing community based water supply sanitation and hygiene education projects. The projects have three main components: development of safe water supply sources, provision of sanitation facilities, and hygiene and sanitation education.To address the water supply problems in the rural areas, OSRA has promoted deep and shallow wells and spring development and thereby enhanced access to clean water supply mainly for human and livestock consumption. Along with the water supply schemes, OSRA establishes Water and Sanitation Committee (WATSAN committee) and community water technicians who are elected by the target communities. While the WATSAN committees are responsible to manage the overall operation of the water supply and sanitation facilities, the community technicians are responsible to perform operation and maintenance of the facilities.
This would ensure the sustainability of the facilities. So far, OSRA has developed over 84 deep and shallow wells and 25 springs, which are giving service mainly for human consumption in three different zones and six districts benefiting more than 132,000 rural community members.
OSRA has integrated sanitation and hygiene education to its water supply schemes in all intervention areas. Based on this, it promotes community washing basins and shower rooms both for men and women where the community members wash their cloths and take bath in their respective villages. In addition to this, hygiene education is given to the community to bring about behavioral change in both personal and environmental hygiene among the community.
This is being practiced through trained community based hygiene education communicators per schemes which are role models for the community as far as hygiene and sanitation is concerned. Various participatory hygiene and sanitation promotion approaches such as participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation (PHAST) and community led total sanitation (CLTS) to improve the knowledge and practice of the target communities.