Discovering the entry point for year 3 of the project

Data for baseline surveys are always the measure to clearly know where to start and the needs to address in reference to the set objectives and outcomes of project implementation.

For the three months of the 2nd quarter for the court of dreams project, baselines studies has been on going with implementers zealous to know the entry point for the newly selected sites for year 3, that includes, Stara Rescue center a school in Darajani, St Vincent De Paul in Olympic and Undugu Basic Education Unit located in Silanga, all located in Kibera slum.

All the tools were put to task including but not limited to; Children’s interviews that investigates the knowledge on toilet use, Standardized tests gauge the level of literacy and numeracy of children, Behavior dos and don’ts that tries to find out that understanding of safe WASH practices, Parents surveys, Concentration and memory games, Quick test games, WASH 2 that handles hand washing practices and monthly school attendance records for children.

Picking on one of the tools’ data from baseline that seem holistic in reference to all the designed M&E tools is Behaviors dos and don’ts. This tool was put to task with twelve pictures with behaviors around WASH.Children are shown the pictures one at a time and probed to tell whether it has a Good, Bad or an in-between option for those who were undecided on the first two options.

A good job done by implementers brought about a view of the state at baseline which is amazing and really defines why intervention is important in the selected sites for year 3.Data analysis showed results such as on the third picture with a child eating food covered with flies, out of 118 participants 29 of them said it is a good behavior, 8 participants were undecided whether it’s good or bad, while 81 said it is a bad WASH practices. This informs the wide spread ways of poor food hygiene practices in the community. Food vendors are always less concern of swam of flies on fish, fruits, and vegetables on a display table. Children learn from observations hence to them food covered with flies is not a bad behavior as their surrounding nurtures them.

Children also informed on the burying feaces as a Safe WASH practice to being a bad behaviors as majority of the participants in the sample saying it’s a bad behavior. Reading through their reasoning and comments, when feaces are buried this becomes interference to farming or people can still come into contact with the buried feaces.

The baseline studies therefore has informed implementers and the team at Sadili at large on the key areas and approaches to make  sustainable impact through reaching out to children, teachers and parents using various learning manuals as designed by the social educator. From the monitoring and evaluation desk a project is made of a commendable change at the end of the project in September 2019.