WASH innovations worth making a splash about

The importance of handwashing has never been clearer than during the past few years. Faced with rising COVID-19 infection rates, soap sales soared as public health messaging urged people to regularly use soap and water to keep germs at bay.

But accessing soap and clean running water is often challenging in emergencies and crisis situations.

For years, Elrha has been supporting humanitarian innovations and research seeking to address the handwashing challenges facing communities affected by crisis.

Some have explored soap alternatives, others have created better handwashing facilities or found new and effective ways to promote handwashing that resulted in positive behaviour change.

We encourage you to explore a few of these solutions (past and present) below.

Gravit'eau

An estimated 3 billion people lack access to basic handwashing facilities (WHO) and, as water is often scarce in crisis contexts, what little does exist tends to be used for drinking and cooking.

As the climate crisis escalates, pressure on access to water is likely to increase, particularly in resource-poor countries.

Enter, Gravit’eau: a new handwashing station that recycles water, reducing the actual water use to just 5 ml per handwash. Activated by a foot pump and using gravity-driven membrane filtration, the system is low-maintenance and requires no external supplies, such as chemicals or electricity.

It’s a sustainable, easy-to-use, economic and environmentally-friendly solution that can be produced locally and is now on its ‘journey to scale’ with our support.

Read more about this innovation.

Increasing the effectiveness of handwashing among people affected by crisis

Funded through Elrha's Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises (R2HC), this research study will contribute to informed humanitarian decision-making by providing an understanding of the ‘life-cycle’ of handwashing infrastructure and addressing major research gaps. It will also improve understanding of how hand hygiene habits can be initiated and sustained over time which could have a meaningful impact on disease transmission in crisis-affected settings.

Specifically, this study will assess whether providing populations affected by crisis with increased access to desirable and durable handwashing facilities will lead to increases in handwashing behaviour. The research will also build evidence on the acceptability, usability, durability, cost-benefits, maintenance and sustainable local production.

Learn more about this research study.

Surprise soap

How do you make soap use more exciting for kids?

Traditionally, promoting good handwashing has mainly focused on schools and sharing health messages. But the Hidden Incentives project took a more creative, fun-focused approach that targeted behaviour change using a soap with a small toy hidden at its core.

As you use it, the soap slowly washes away, leaving you with clean hands and a fun gift. Better still, the aim is to manufacture these soaps locally, at low cost and tailored to the preferences of the community.

The team — from Save the Children UK, the London School of Hygiene &; Tropical Medicine and Field Ready - trialled the soap with children in a humanitarian camp in northern Iraq. Nearly all (97%) of households finished at least one bar of Surprise Soap and after four weeks the children were four times more likely to wash their hands with soap at key occasions than those who had been given a plain soap bar.

Find out more about this project.

OXFAM HANDWASHING STAND

When, in 2016, students from the UK’s Beech Grove Academy designed a self-contained handwashing kit for family and communal the Oxfam team were so impressed they entered it in Elrha’s Handwashing Challenge.

Five years later, in October 2021, the A-frame stand has been officially launched after successful trials in multiple contexts, including the DRC, Yemen, Chad, Kenya, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Algeria, South Sudan and more.

The new design, funded by our Humanitarian Innovation Fund, aims to be more user-friendly and water-efficient than the old tippy-tap system of suspended jerry-cans with a foot pedal that tips first liquid soap, then water over their hands.

The handy wash tap, which is part of the handwashing stand, and the water collection tray also prevent water and soap from splashing on people.

Easy to use, assemble, transport and maintain, it’s great for first-phase emergency installation and trials showed increased handwashing where kits were installed.

Find out more about this innovation.

** This blog was edited in October 2023 **