Ashiraf makes sure mirembe village is washing hands

A young man, very passionate about environment and health caught the CivSource Africa eye. In prioritizing human health in these times of coronavirus, whilst preserving the environment, philanthropist Ashiraf Ssebandeke has been nothing short of exemplary.

“I have been helping people in my village to set up tippy taps for hand washing and also teach them how to wash their hands especially children,” he says. By his village, Ssebandeke is talking about Mirembe Village, in Kitanda Sub County Bukomansimbi District.

Initially curved out of the an environment and health project of Climate Change Health Agriculture and Development Initiative (CCHADI) a community based organization, Sssebandeke has now tweaked it a bit to fit into the coronavirus prevention campaign.

“We were motivated to help the community because people were using jerrycans to wash their hands,” he explains. “Being a farming community, if the person had just left the garden and washed hands they would leave the jerrycan dirty and unappealing for the next person.”

So together with his colleagues, they decided to make hand washing a seamless activity. Besides preaching for better hygiene and against poor disposal habits of plastics, they also ensure the public understood how the virus can spread through surfaces like shared jerrycans and boreholes. 

“For the borehole, we saw hundreds of people using the same metal to pump water and no one was disinfecting,” he begins. “So we put the taps for them to wash hands when they come and before going back home.” Though fascinated by the fact that there would be a tap just next to a boreholes, the village’s people soon understood why and abided. Had Ashraf and team not put the hand washing option at the borehole,all it would have taken would have been one infected person to infect others.

By CivSource Africa Team