UNICEF Uganda ● April 2022 to date

What was the issue?
Evidence indicates that improved hand washing can have a major impact on public health and significantly reduces two leading causes of childhood mortality; diarrheal disease and acute respiratory infection.

Uganda’s hand washing with soap (HWWS) rates have remained consistently low, at 38% in rural areas and 61.1% in urban areas. This is despite the efforts invested over many years in improving the practice of hand hygiene. Both access to the facilities to practice hand hygiene and support for the behaviours required are missing in many settings. Stakeholders in this sector acknowledge that Uganda needs to re-strategize Social Behaviour Change interventions to achieve the targeted rate of 50% HWWS by 2025.

What did S4P Group do?
We developed a National Hand Washing With Soap Toolkit to guide the latest campaign by the Hand Washing With Soap Secretariat. This toolkit was informed by findings and recommendations from consultation meetings that S4P GroupProducts had conducted with audience representatives in 11 districts across the country. These priority audiences included learners, caregivers of children under 6 years, academic institutions, Community Health Workers, District Health Teams, landlords, and custodians of public places. The selection of districts was based on specific criteria including high and low performance with HWWS, refugee hosting, urban setting, and areas which had benefited from prior HWWS projects.

How did the S4P Group approach provide value?
S4P Group used the Social Ecological Model (SEM) as a framework for developing the toolkit. SEM takes into consideration the eco system that influences behaviour uptake and addresses the various levels of influence in order to cause behaviour change. Rather than a one-time, one-way activity, this approach involves an iterative social process that unfolds over time.
The toolkit defined a phased campaign roll out of seven months, with three phases focused on Advocacy, Social Mobilisation, and Behaviour Change. The S4P GroupTeam’s expertise in the use of multiple channels, adapting messages to each local context, co-designing with target audiences, and the emphasis on research-backed messaging were a major factor in the development of the toolkit.

What is the impact?
The I Wash You Wash campaign is being rolled out in partnership with UNICEF Uganda, Ministry of Water, and Obulamu. As of March 2023, S4P GroupProducts has organised several public launches of the campaign in primary schools and busy commercial centres.
Check out the splash that the I Wash You Wash campaign #IWYW has made on social media on the week of March 6th 2023: Quality Supermarket Uganda; Rotary Club of Naalya; Harris International; Riham Uganda; Obulamu Uganda

Overall, 670,000 people were directly reached by the interpersonal communication interventions in three districts. Noted a 47% increase in the access to handwashing facilities in slum areas, while 90% of the public areas like taxi parks maintained functional handwashing facilities. The campaign was hinged on collective responsibility and this resulted into local business handwashing initiatives which contributed 20,000 pieces of soap to the Karamoja region schools.