MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe, Cholera, WASH Toolkit

Zimbabwe Environmental Health Toolkit

MSF has successfully developed and piloted an Environmental Health Toolkit with a strong Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) focus

Background and Rationale

 

In an effort to control outbreaks and prevent reoccurrence of waterborne infectious diseases in Harare’s suburbs, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has successfully developed and piloted an Environmental Health Toolkit with a strong Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) focus.

Recent programme results, as well as operational research, validate the toolkit as an effective, cost-efficient, and sustainable approach meeting an urgent demand in Zimbabwe and the South Africa Region.

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe, Cholera, WASH Toolkit
Activites of MSF projects in Zimbabwe 2018
MSF

Building on the toolkit’s success and the promising evidence, MSF is looking to expand the use of the toolkit in neighbouring countries and the South African Region and is offering its tools and training materials to neighbouring MSF missions and partners.

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe, Cholera, WASH Toolkit
Toolkit Components

Toolkit Components

The toolkit currently consists of four modular components, which can be adapted individually or jointly

Borehole Diagnosing and Rehabilitation

 

Diagnosing, repairing, cleaning, and rehabilitating obstructed or contaminated boreholes is often more cost-efficient and effective than drilling new ones. A custom-fit vehicle with a mobile camera, data probes, depth water sampler helps in diagnosing the underlying cause of borehole dysfunctionality and actions are taken based on the diagnosis to rehabilitate the boreholes to get fresh water from existing nonfunctional water points.

 

Community Health Clubs

 

Engaging local communities in managing water points creates sustainable ownership and responsibility and helps ensure the monitoring of water quality. The training for Community Health Clubs (CHCs) includes water point management, resource mobilization, sanitation, personal hygiene, and containing infectious disease outbreaks.

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe WASH toolkit activities

Borehole Drilling and Construction Techniques

 

Shallow water aquifers can be contaminated with bacteria and get into boreholes. When drilling new boreholes, it is therefore imperative to use the right drilling techniques and cement a proper sanitary seal around the borehole casing.

 

Geophysical Surveying and Borehole Siting

 

Geophysical surveying technology helps to find the best location for a new borehole, with subsurface images showing potential water-bearing formations.

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe WASH toolkit activities
Borehole Diagnostics Toolkit

Borehole Diagnostics Toolkit

Borehole Diagnostics Toolkit

Borehole Diagnostics

 

A borehole is a structure that is susceptible to physical, chemical and biological processes that may influence its life span, yield and water quality. The above factors depend on the quality of borehole construction, the way it is operated and geological conditions or aquifer characteristics.

 

Deterioration of a borehole may lead to some serious contaminations of water harmful for human use and eventually it being abandoned, leading to costly measures to develop alternative water sources for communities. Borehole diagnosis and rehabilitation is often a cheaper alternative to new borehole drilling.

 

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe, WASH, activities

Borehole diagnosis entails using visual enhancement tools like down-the-hole camera, depth water sampling probe and data logging probe tools to infer the physical, chemical, geological and aquifer characteristics that may be influencing the poor performance of a borehole. This inference combined with water quality analysis and borehole capacity pumping tests helps to understand the cause of borehole deterioration and determine the relevance of a corrective measure.

Borehole Diagnostics Tool Kit Operating Guide pdf — 4.86 MB

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Video

Borehole Diagnostics

A borehole is a structure that is susceptible to physical, chemical and biological processes that may influence its life span, yield and water quality. The above factors depend on quality of borehole construction, the way it is operated and geological conditions or aquifer characteristics. Deterioration of a borehole may lead to some serious contaminations of water harmful for human use and eventually it being abandoned, leading to costly measures to develop alternative water sources for communities. Borehole diagnosis and rehabilitation is often a cheaper alternative to new borehole drilling.
MSF
MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe WASH toolkit activities
Community Health Club Toolkit

Community Health Club Toolkit

This manual outlines the Community Health Club (CHC) approach and how this approach has been specifically used by MSF as a sustainable way of running water points and teaching communities on health and hygiene issues.

msf.local

This methodology has been implemented by MSF with the support of various stakeholders including the City of Harare Department, Health Promotion Department, Ministry of Health and Child Care, Church leaders and Schools responsible (where water points were established), local community leaders and political leaders.

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Community Health Club

The manual covers how community hand pumps and newly drilled boreholes have been upgraded to water points that provide communities with clean and safe drinking water. How communities have been trained in health and hygiene issues for behaviour change and their involvement in running the water point to ensure sustainability. 

This approach has been implemented in low income, high-density suburbs of Harare, Zimbabwe, which have been identified as the epicentre of diarrheal diseases. The approach is ready to roll-out in similar contexts where community involvement is crucial for the sustainability of the humanitarian interventions in the WASH sector.

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe WASH toolkit activities
Community Health Club Handbook pdf — 3.88 MB

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Community Health Club Training Plan pdf — 899.01 KB

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Video

WASH Community Health Clubs Zimbabwe

MSF teams conducted investigations to identify the reasons why people were falling ill in the Kuwadzana, Zimbabwe. They discovered that the local water sources, including boreholes, that people were using were contaminated.  MSF teams realized there was huge need for safe drinking water as well as health and hygiene education in the community. Communities needed to own and manage the sources of clean drinking water themselves.  MSF started rehabilitating contaminated boreholes and drilling new boreholes to increase local access to safe drinking water. 
MSF
MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe WASH toolkit activities
Borehole Drilling and Construction Toolkit

Borehole Drilling and Construction Toolkit

The purpose of this manual is to assist MSF field engineers and Environmental Health experts to supervise boreholes drillings for providing sustainable water points to the communities.

Borehole Drilling and Construction

The purpose of this manual is to assist MSF field engineers and Environmental Health experts to supervise boreholes drillings for providing sustainable water points to the communities. The manual is a practical guide to MSF standard drilling techniques and implementing drilling programs in places with hydrogeological potential.

It provides a step by step methodology based on the experiences in drilling boreholes in peri-urban and urban settings in Harare, Zimbabwe. Drawing on these experiences and using the expertise available within the countries, programs can be tailored to the needs and the means of different country programs.

MSF Environmental Health Toolkit Technical training Manual on Borehole Drilling and Construction Toolkit pdf — 3.78 MB

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MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe WASH toolkit activities
Geophysical Surveying Technique Toolkit

Geophysical Surveying Technique Toolkit

MSF plans to use this equipment for its further interventions within the southern African region 

The ERT surveying is a geophysical technique, useful for characterizing the sub-surface geological formations in terms of their electrical properties. Variations in electrical resistivity (or conductivity) typically correlate with variations in lithology, water saturation, fluid conductivity, salinity, porosity and permeability. This information can be used to map various subsurface characteristics including the presence of the possible fractured zones and groundwater.

MSF Environmental Health Toolkit. An Introduction to Geophysical Surveying Techniques pdf — 352.31 KB

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MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe WASH toolkit activities
KOBO Toolkit: User Guide

KOBO Toolkit: User Guide

Used in more and more field missions, such as Malnutrition Nigeria, HIV South Africa,
Watsan Lebanon, Migrants...

Features


Build forms: Easily create surveys forms. Navigate through an intuitive and powerful tool. Use template Libraries.

Collect data: Quick collect data on smartphone and tablets online or offline. Synchronize with your office. 

Export and analyze: Get direct access to your data. Export in usual formats (xls, CSV,..) for analysis in any dedicated tool, even the GIS Dashboard.

KOBO TOOLBOX pdf — 3.79 MB

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Video

Preventing Cholera with Access to Clean Water in Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, recurring outbreaks of cholera and typhoid fever are a pressing health concern. In many of the city’s suburbs, the public water supply is unreliable, and leaking sewage pipes, pit latrines, and poor waste management contaminate the groundwater. In this video, we see how Doctors Without Borders (MSF) teams use innovative borehole technology and empower communities to manage their own water points.
MSF

Contact and Support

MSF, Doctors Without Borders, Zimbabwe WASH toolkit activities
Water and Sanitation

MSF Zimbabwe and its Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Team are accompanying the regional upscaling of the toolkit with dedicated training and implementation support. MSF’s operational research unit LuxOR and its policy and practice advisor support the project with strategic planning, communication and advocacy support.

 

For all questions and support requests please contact:
Danish Malik

 

Regional Project Coordinator (Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa)

 

Environmental Health Project

 

Médecins Sans Frontières (OCB)| Zimbabwe Mission