The Villagers Turn Their Village Health

Paschim Manoharpur is a remote and poor village located at the Monoharpur union of
Monirampur upazila under the Jashore district of Bangladesh. The village is also a house of
more than 115 families of 444 people, of whose 244 male, and 200 female. The livelihood of
the villagers predominately revolves around daily wages as some are day-labors and others
are van pullers. But a lion’s share of their wages used to go off on health treatment because
of getting sick often around the year. Losing a chuck of their precious earnings only in
medical treatment, the villagers had no idea of causing illness & taking away and affecting
their lives & livelihoods. Because the people of Paschim Manoharpur were unaware of their
hanging toilets & contaminated Tube-well water and other unhealthy habits were behind their
poor health.

In 2017, SKS Foundation’s initiatives under Max Nutri-WASH Project started working with
the villagers to identify their problems, understand the causes of their health problems, and
find the ways & means to solve these problems. The big challenge is all villagers must be
agreed and understood that not only individual health but also the collective health of the
community is equally important to be healthy. The Max Nutri-WASH Project along with the
villagers worked hard to turn the villagers understood that not the individual but the collective
health of the community is equally important to be healthy. The entire village collectively
started working together for solving their health problems through their action & efforts. A
survey was conducted, a social map was drawn, and the well-being of the marginalized
people was analyzed. Then, for community mobilization, a 15-member Community Support
Group (CSG) was given full support with capacity-building training in managing, monitoring,
and utilizing community health. This CSG united all villagers using Participatory Graduation
Monitoring (PGM) in their village and found out their gaps. For the holistic development of
the village, it combined food & nutrition security with WASH.

Initially, for demonstration, the Project installed 2 Community-based Deep Tube-wells and a
Woman Bathing Chamber with Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) facilities and
donated 20 off-pit sanitary latrines to ultra-poor families of the village. Besides, it prompted
Local Entrepreneurs (LE), Health Promotion Agents (HPA), mentors & sweepers to the
availability and demand for healthy products & services.

Finally, the day came on 17 November 2020 as a reward for their collective work, the village
was officially declared a Health Village as the village has met 18 indicators of a healthy
village. The village scenario of the village has been dramatically changed. Now, 100% of the
villagers are having and use the sanitary latrine, napkins, basins beside latrines, safe
drinking water, handwashing devices, nutrition garden, maintain birth registration, PNC &
ANC check-up, breastfeeding, GMP & 360-degree hygiene and providing supplementary
food. Now, some 60% family has a dining and kitchen basin, and 50% family has a Women’s
Bathing Chamber (WBC)

Mashiur Rahaman, the Chairman of the Manoharpur union, said while announcing Paschim
Manoharpur as a Health Village, “I am proud to be a part of this Health Village at my union
and see the change of the people’s behaviors toward health. This has been possible
because of collective and individual efforts towards health.”