Group photo of participants attending the two days training at Ahetaha training centre. Photo: Supplied.
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BY JOHN HOUANIHAU

A two-day training on maintenance and operation on WASH Program was successfully held in ward 19 in East Are’Are Constituency.

The two days community collaboration training was organised by Ahetaha Water Conservation Association (AWCA) in East Are’Are constituency.

The WASH training was part of AWCA’s community service for the affiliated communities; Foulofo, Kanata, Su’u, Manawai, Ahetaha, Raeao, and Nariao’a village from November 18th to 19th.

Facilitated by AWCA Coordinator, Mr. Eddie Huitarau, James Singi and John Haroka, the training was attended by 30 participants (all females) from the mentioned communities.

AWCA Coordinator Mr. Eddie Huitarau introduced the training to the participants on the first day inside the training centre. Photo: Supplied.

The program was the 4th phase of SPC-HRSD Pacific People Advancing Change (PPAC) Small Grants targeted for Pacific People Advancing Change towards Advocacy campaign for an Advocacy campaign on any particular issue identified by pacific people that needs special attention.

Mr. Huitarau said that the AWCA Advocacy Campaign for this phase was the premise on ‘Promoting women in WASH with Operation and Maintenance skills in rural communities and settings.’

“The program’s activity is mainly on hardware component that advocates for involvement and wider participation of women in rural WASH committees on planning to highlight greater importance to have women’s participation at the community level to avoid the burden of women lacking basic technical skills when needs arise in their own settings,’’ he told participants.

He said that from the workshop, most of these women have seen the challenge of advocators taking the initiative to prioritise women and girls for WASH activities.

One of the participants Mrs. Belinda Watewari expressed her appreciation to AWCA Coordinator stating, “We as women have realise our own challenge and concerns in the face of WASH facilities.

Group discussion before presentation led by group leader Mrs. Belinda of Foulofo village. Photo: Supplied.

According to Mrs. Watewari what saddened them is the fact that it is so difficult for women elites of Aiaisi ward 19 to see this need from the lens of women themselves instead you have identified this challenge as an individual from a community and lead this idea as a cross-cutting issue best fit to exposé as an important agenda for East Are’Are communities.

“Thank you for taking this initiative to us,” Mrs. Watewari said.

Mr. Huitarau told women participants that this is part of the human rights and social development (HRSD) project targeted for women and it aims to achieve this by advancing human rights, equality, and social inclusion for all Pacific people, grounded in cultural values and principles.

The project is funded through the SPC-Building positive advocacy capacity to advance human rights– which is a twelve-month funded program working with Civil Society Organisations on innovative ways to improve water, sanitation, and hygiene for women and girls in the rural villages.

The project is led by PPAC in collaboration with AWCA and this partnership includes financial oversight, management, and coordination of the project, with an implementing team, made up of AWCA and WASH specialists in the communities.

The key WASH tools and approaches used in the project include Community-Led Total Sanitation, WASH Facility Improvement Tool, and social marketing approaches to improve hygiene practices and behaviors.

Group presentation led by Mrs. Mary Takaramu during the training at Ahetaha water conservation training centre. Photo: Supplied.

“The CLTS Training approaches really provide skills and motivation to households for women to effectively assess, plan, act and monitor WASH improvements to achieve safe, secure, and inclusive WASH,” said Huitarau. 

“The project seeks to empower rural women to gain skills and knowledge to enable them to repair basic WASH facilities for their families to meet family hygiene and other family needs and cultural obligations.

He revealed that for this phase AWCA identifies that although women began to access WASH facilities within their homes and communities there is still a problem of low cost and inappropriate material used by women across many rural communities and villages in East Are’Are.

“In terms of our project outcome – our expected change over time is for women members in WASH committees aware of WASH facilities Operation and maintenance and practices and know how to apply and use them.

“Furthermore, the immediate result we want to see is for women committee members to have better awareness on WASH facilities Operation and Maintenance,’’ he said.


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