Q&A

You should contact the WASH service provider for your area that will facilitate finding a de-sludging contractor. Alternatively contact the local Municipality.

In Lebanon the local Municipality is responsible for garbage collection. If this is not happening your WASH service provide can help set up regular collections. You must ensure that your garbage is piled in a single safe location, agreed by the Municipality, for easy and quick collection.

If the Municipality is unable to help collect then your WASH service provider will be able to support your community to dispose of the solid waste safely by providing training and materials.

You should contact your WASH service provider in the community, a Community WASH volunteer or a WASH committee.

The hygiene promotion or community WASH volunteer is a focal point between your community and the WASH agency in charge, the WASH service provider.Your hygiene promotion or community WASH volunteer is responsible to report issues related to WASH in your community and to assist the WASH agency with hygiene awareness raising exercises, monitoring of activities and ensuring that the community stays environmentally safe. Your hygiene promotion or community WASH volunteer is responsible to report issues related to WASH in your community and to assist the WASH agency with hygiene awareness raising exercises, monitoring of activities and ensuring that the community stays environmentally safe.

Volunteers should:

• Live in the IS/ CS and use the WASH facilities
• Have sufficient time to spend representing and mobilizing the community
• Be trusted by community
• Not plan to move on in the next couple of months
• Be representative of different groups/ WASH facility users (including women and vulnerable groups).
• Dynamic, active, motivated and able to motivate others
• Dependable and approachable
• Communicate effectively with their community and the WASH service provider,
• Have the required technical skills for the position ie. Maintenance or HP depending on the specifications of the volunteer position
• Be willing to volunteer for a certain period
• Be a good role model.

Hygiene Promotion is more than giving messages on healthy behaviours to beneficiaries:

Participatory methods that focus on interaction with the affected community are often the most successful in achieving changes in practice. However, there is a trade-off between outreach and effectiveness and the more participatory approaches are often time consuming and labour intensive whereas the dissemination of messages via the mass media will reach more people, more quickly, but may be less effective in achieving the desired outcomes.

WASH your hands with soap and water at critical times – before eating or preparing food, before feeding babies and infants, after using the toilet or contact with feces.

Ensure your child is getting plenty of fluids to remain hydrated. A child with diarrhea should receive oral rehydration salts (ORS). This can be made at home or bought at a local pharmacy.

Don’t stop breastfeeding your baby if they have diarrhea. Breastfeeding is the best way to keep your baby hydrated. Contact your nearest available medical centre.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) is the support provided to populations in distress, including water supply, sanitation facilities and hygiene promotion. WASH activities aim to reduce the spread of infectious diseases, such as diarrhea or other diseases relating to water sanitation and poor hygienic conditions or practices.

Water supply should be:

• Available and accessible to all
• Provide an adequate amount for you and your family
• Be located in a safe place

Local conditions affect the amount of water that can be made available and WASH agencies should provide you with information about availabilities and possibilities

Other aspects of WASH include:

• The work of community hygiene promoters
• The safe disposal of rubbish
• The provision of drainage
• Operation and maintenance of water and sanitation infrastructure
• All aspects of WASH require involvement of the population in the planning, installation and long term operation and maintenance. Your views should be sought by the WASH agency when siting facilities.

A WASH Service provider is the agency/NGO that is assisting the local community and/or refugees and Lebanese to:

• Have access to safe water, safe and dignified latrines, showers, laundry spaces and safe means of solid waste disposal.
• Ensure some hygiene support through training local volunteers on hygiene issues.
• Support the community for ongoing operation and maintenance of WASH infrastructure.

The contact details for the WASH Service Provider are with your WASH committee or you can refer to the Annex in the WASHsection.

A WASH committee is a representative group of community members, either elected or appointed by the community, which is responsible for supervision, operation and maintenance of the WASH facilities as wells as other issues that are related to the WASH project in your community.

Report this to the available community leadership structures, or to the committee/local dispute resolution mechanism in your area. In case you are not satisfied with the solution from the dispute resolution team, you can refer the case to the WASH service provider, or collective site management agency.