News
Building essential WASH expertise in Zimbabwe
15 July 2010
Ensuring safe water, adequate sanitation and effective hygiene measures is crucial in any humanitarian emergency – it is indispensable to preventing deadly disease outbreaks and constitutes a basic human right. From 19 – 23 July, RedR will be delivering a series of training sessions for Zimbabwean water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) professionals, aimed at enhancing local capacity to develop and implement emergency WASH programmes in the region.
In 2008 – 2009, Zimbabwe experienced one of the continent’s worst outbreaks of Cholera, with nearly 4,000 people dead and close to 100,000 reported cases. The public health emergency required a major international intervention to support the implementation of WASH programmes to contain and prevent the spread of the disease, and exposed the countries dilapidated water and sanitation infrastructure and weak health system.
Recognising the importance of developing technical skills and capacity to respond to future emergencies in country, RedR is working in partnership with the Zimbabwean Institute of Water and Sanitation Development (IWSD) to build a resource of skilled local trainers equipped to deliver WASH emergency response training in the region.
Cheryl McDonald, leading the project for RedR and experienced WASH professional, comments:
"This course is going to be really practical giving people the chance to practice and improve their training skills. It will give them new and exciting ways to pass on their WASH knowledge to colleagues and communities making sure that when the next emergency strikes they have the skills to respond."
The Training of Trainers for WASH professionals course in Zimbabwe will help build a specialised resource of skilled local WASH trainers, who can work with aid agencies and personnel in the region to improve future responses.
Working with the global WASH Cluster
The training will also serve as an initial pilot for a comprehensive set of technical training materials developed by RedR for the global WASH Cluster. The materials will cover four core areas of WASH in rapid and slow onset emergencies, as well as nine specialist technical areas. These include Ground Water Development and Drilling’, ‘WASH strategy’, Urban Floods, Vector Control, and WASH Related Diseases.
Providing training to local WASH professionals across these areas will help ensure that future emergency responses in disaster-affected countries are more sustainable, of an acceptable standard, sensitive to local contexts and have considered relevant cross-cutting issues. The resources have been specifically designed to allow local trainers to run WASH courses for local organisations and aid workers, typically the first to respond in an emergency, to improve their involvement in carrying out technical WASH work.
RedR has been involved with the UNICEF-led WASH Cluster since early 2007, providing essential technical training, learning materials and support to the international sector. Within the sector, the WASH Cluster provides a platform for all Emergency WASH actors to work together, develop response plans which address key gaps as identified both by those key actors, but also verification from the field. Effective training and capacity building within the WASH Cluster will ensure a more predictable, timely and coherent humanitarian response within the sector.
The ‘Cluster’ approach was designed to promote better coordination of humanitarian activities following a disaster. It aims to create more accountable and better planned responses, as well as better partnerships with host governments and other local organisations. There are currently 11 different ‘Clusters’, including Emergency Shelter, WASH, Health, Nutrition, Education, and Logistics.
To learn more about RedR’s work with the WASH Cluster visit www.redr.org.uk/WASH or contact wash.cluster@redr.org.uk
The importance of equipping local aid workers and communities with the skills and resources needed to more effectively respond to current and future emergencies, is the focus of RedR’s Respond, Resource, Rebuild campaign. To find out more about this important issue and about how to get involved visit our website or call Eva Modvig, Communications Manager on 020 7840 6012.
View RedR Member and Shelter Expert Joseph Ashmore speaking on Channel 4 News about the Haiti quake.
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