Child health and sanitation communications and advocacy support in Sub-Saharan Africa

Purpose

To support advocacy and communications efforts around child health in Nigeria and Ethiopia, and sanitation in Senegal.

Activities

Current state of affairs (Sept 2018):

After three successful years of collaboration between Speak Up Africa and ONAS, and because of the good results of the communication campaign and building of capacity, ONAS is scaling up the pilot program through the implementation of the National Program for Sustainable Development of Non-Sewered Sanitation in Senegal (PNDDAA) across the country. To support ONAS in this orientation, Speak Up Africa continues the efforts to strengthen the ONAS’ communication capacity, develop news tools (documents and videos) to assist the scaling up and elaborate training session for pit emptiers through Senegal.

Since 2016, Speak Up Africa has organized and overseen dozen of awareness workshops with women, girls, boys, and thought leaders in Dakar peri urban areas, Pikine and Guediawaye. Through the partnership with the sanitary district of Pikine, which help to build capacity of health officers about menstrual hygiene management, more than 10 000 inhabitants of the area have been sensitized and trained.

Biggest successes so far:

- Establishment of a national dialogue to support ONAS and the Ministry of Sanitation’s national agenda of improved sanitation, fostering greater synergies among policymakers and private sector stakeholders.

- ONAS’ institutional communication capacity is strengthened, for instance messages and briefs are developed to apprise public and private sector leaders of current initiatives developed by ONAS around fecal sludge management.

- Creation of the “Settal Sunu Gox” communication campaign

- Creation of the “No Taboo Periods” campaign, which aims to break the silence around menstruation and raise awareness about the fundamental role that menstrual hygiene management plays in enabling women and girls to reach their full potential.


Details about activities is given in the project description below.

Countries of activity

Location of main activity

Objectives

From October 2015 to March 2017, the program supported activities to increase the visibility of child health and pneumonia as serious public health issues in Nigeria and Ethiopia, and increase awareness of methods of prevention, diagnosis and treatment with the purpose of reducing the child mortality with an emphasis on pneumonia.

In Senegal, since 2015, Speak Up Africa has been striving to effectively mobilize high-level public and private Senegalese leadership, generating concrete action and improving capacity for improved urban sanitation solutions in Senegal. This project also catalyzes improved awareness among communities of optimal menstrual hygiene.

Further information

Grant size was: $2,598,166 (in October 2015)

Contact information

Yaye Sophiétou DIOP
Login to see the e-mail-adress of the contact person.

Filter tags

Behaviour change Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Capacity development Community sanitation Enabling environment and institutional strengthening Health and hygiene Journalists Local NGO Political processes and institutional aspects Politicians and local decision makers Practitioners Public awareness, advocacy and civil society engagement Specific to one or several countries Sub-Saharan Africa

Attached files

Links