Operationalising water, sanitation, hygiene concepts through ‘Green schools initiative’

Friday, 20 September 2019 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Over 40 experts from the education, health, water, sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition sectors and the Reaching the Unreached Project team kicked off a series of workshops to develop an operational manual for implementing a comprehensive program for developing sustainable schools under the ‘Green schools initiative’ of the Central Province.

The program, which comprises development of practical training modules and video training material for the provincial education system is part of the European Union-funded Reaching the Unreached Project, which when completed will be rolled out in all 1,467 provincial schools in the Central Province covering 29,000 teachers and 500,000 students.

Central Province Ministry of Education and Local Government Chief Ministry Secretary Gamini Rajaratne stated, “Green School Concept aimed at holistic development of children which will impact the homes, schools, villages, towns, cities and eventually the society through promotion of good values, ethics and practices to make responsible citizens endowed with wisdom.”

H.A.T.D.K. Jayaratne, Principal Hemamali Girls School, Kandy – one of the six schools in the Central Province to pilot this program – elaborated that the Green School approach does not duplicate any on-going programs of the education system but help operationalise concepts in schools through practical activities such as landscaping, behaviour change training, tree planning, energy conservation, waste management and other programs along the themes of people, water, air, land, energy and waste.

This module which will be made available in Sinhala, Tamil and English and absorbed into the provincial education system will cover many action learning sessions aimed at improving competencies and promoting positive behaviours in the areas of water, sanitation, hygiene, waste, nutrition, environment, safety and protection, health (both mental and physical health and wellbeing), energy, agriculture and horticulture.

The ‘Reaching the Unreached Estates and Surrounding Communities on Equitable Water, Sanitation, Hygiene (WASH) for Improved Health and Nutrition Project’ is funded by the European Union’s Integrated Rural Development Programme and implemented in 52 Estates and 105 surrounding rural villages and 81 provincial schools in the Nuwara Eliya, Matale, Badulla and Monaragala districts. The project is implemented by Solidaridad Network Asia, Nucleus Foundation, and the Institute of Social Development. It supports unreached estate and rural communities to improve access safe water, sanitation facilities and promotes nutrition improvement is carried out in partnership with the Ministry of Hill Country, New Villages, Infrastructure and Community Development; Central and Uva Provincial Councils; Regional Economic Development Agency; Plantation Human Development Trust; Sri Lanka Medical Nutrition Association and the Department of National Community Water Supply.