The National Business Compact on Corona (NBCC) primary mission is to limit the spread of infections by improving hygiene practices and contribute to protecting lives and livelihoods across Kenya and Africa. It has been established that Good hand hygiene is an inexpensive way to limit the spread of COVID-19 as well as most other infections.
To date NBCC and the Partners have deployed up to 5,400 hand washing stations in various parts of the country reaching approximately 15,762 Million people. Hand washing interventions therefore remains one of the primary NBCC focus areas.
On Thursday 23rd July 2020 the NBCC team led by Head of the Secretariat Maggie Rarieya and WASH work stream Head , Maureen Kolenyo , joined by the implementing partners visited Kibra ( Nairobi County) and Wangige ( Kiambu county/ The purpose of the visit was the coalition to familiarize themselves and asses the progress made by various partners so far. Speaking during the visit, Ms. Rarieya noted the user facing stations have offered numerous learning’s that have subsequently informed major decisions from the design of the hand washing stations, to where to deploy them.
Rotary District 9212 led by Rt. Dr. Ojiambo who is the health focal point for the district led the visitors to visit two Rotary sites in Kibra one at Olympic and another at Makina. These sites are run in partnership with SHOFOC as the implementing partner. The sites fall inside the jurisdiction of Rotary club of Langata represented by Rotarian Ngina and team. Rotary District 9212 set up these hws as part of the emergency response of the Covid Pandemic. The Rotary International seeks to digitize the data collection process at the various Hand wash station and they have jointly established a digital application called Map Wash. During this visit, the partners demonstrated how the Map Wash system works. This app is being developed and tested by Rotary District 9212 in conjunction with Map Wash. It will be used to monitor and evaluate the performance of handwash stations.
Rotarian Ngina, from the Rotary club of Langata further reiterated that the Map wash app which is still under trial will help in geo-locating hand washing stations, collect data on the daily users- gender, demographics , numbers etc. while informing the managers when to refill the tanks and re-order for provisions. Map Wash app has been successfully deployed in Mathare area (Nairobi County) on a trial basis and will be introduced in Kibra
Partners’ representatives present were Copia, Rotary, Jonathan Jackson Foundation, Sanergy, Shujaaz, and SHOFCO
Speaking on their various roles, the Copia team spoke on their logistics and distribution role through their mashinani agent network. NBCC places the orders and delivers the tanks and soap to Copia who in turn arranges for distribution to these agents and or designated hand washing stations.
Rotary on the other hand has 30 hand wash stations in Kibra where they collaborate with SHOFCO for placement in high risk/traffic areas. Besides helping place the hand washing stations, SHOFCO also helps keep the respective stations “hydrated” by donating water from their boreholes in the said areas. Besides collaborating with Rotary, SHOFCO has a further 70 stations in Kibra and a total 535 countrywide. In areas not close to the boreholes, the station managers buy water at Ksh. 10 for a 20 liter jerry can. The Hand washing stations have equally provided an employment opportunity for the youth in these areas.
From the visit, the team was left with more answers than questions especially on how best to discard the used water, design future hand washing stations and the deployment of the Map Wash app.
These insights from the filed visit present an opportunity for NBCC and coalition partners to test the effectiveness of the solutions or processes in the fight against Covid-19.
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