Welcome to the 25th issue of the COVID-19 Hygiene Hub news bulletin.
In this issue, we are delighted to bring your attention to the upcoming plans for the COVID-19 Hygiene Hub and external events planned in the next month.
As mentioned in the last bulletin, the COVID-19 Hygiene Hub will no longer provide rapid or ongoing technical support to partners beyond September 2021. However, do stay tuned for future learning briefs and a number of case studies.
COVID-19 Hygiene Hub Feedback Survey
The COVID-19 Hygiene Hub would like to thank you all for connecting with us and sharing learning over the last year. We welcome your feedback on our services by completing a short (less than 5 minutes) survey to help us understand more about how our services have been used and applied to COVID-19 prevention programmes. You can access the survey via this link - COVID-19 Hygiene Hub Feedback Survey. We would also appreciate it if you could share the survey with your colleagues who may have used the COVID-19 Hygiene Hub.
Website
Our website is evolving and will function as a long-term repository of resources, learning briefs, case studies, and webinars. Users will be able to search these so that they can inform COVID-19 responses and disease prevention programmes in the future.
Our new website will also feature:
A new connections page - this will allow you to connect with some of our partner organisations for additional resources and support.
A summary of our work over the course of the pandemic including data about our interactions with response actors around the world.
Learning briefs & webinars
A recording is available for a webinar hosted by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development office (FCDO)’s COVID-19 Behaviour Change Forum and the COVID-19 Hygiene Hub. This webinar focuses on building trust and resilience to misinformation for vaccine uptake and features presentations from behaviour change specialists and frontline actors in India and Libya.
Please check out our previous learning briefs on hand hygiene promotion, monitoring and evaluation, and disability and inclusion in COVID-19 prevention programmes. Next month we will be publishing a learning brief on coordination and financing of the pandemic response.
Events
Global Handwashing Day Celebration - Not to be missed, the launch of The State of the World’s Hand Hygiene Report - 15th of October 2021 at 0900 (EST).
Join sector leaders for the launch of the first State of the World’s Hand Hygiene report and learn how governments are driving efforts to scale up hand hygiene.
Register here today for free for the event - registration link
UNC Water Institute - 2021 Water & Health Conference
Don’t miss the October 6 session: Learning from Hygiene Response to COVID-19: Approaches to strengthen all aspects of the programme design cycle. Coordinated by the COVID-19 Hygiene Hub, this session will include presentations and discussions related to data collection to inform programming, intervention design and delivery, monitoring and evaluation and effective partnerships and sector coordination. Register here today for free for the event - registration link
A range of other sessions will take place which will undoubtedly be of interest to you. For example, Sarah Bick from LSHTM will present a multi-country rapid assessment on behalf of the COVID-19 Hygiene Hub, RANAS, and WaterAid, which will highlight the frequency and drivers of handwashing for COVID-19 prevention. This will take place on October 4th at 1330 EDT. Register here for the UNC event
Technical resources
We continue updating our collection of over 200 technical resources to support you in your COVID-19 response by giving you access to the relevant evidence and guidance.
As a reminder, our summary report on how to integrate COVID-19 vaccine promotion into prevention programmes is now available in English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.
Global Handwashing Day (15th of October 2021) is approaching fast, and the theme is ‘Our Future is at Hand - Let’s Move Forward Together”. An exciting Global Handwashing Day Fact Sheet is available here.
WHO and UNICEF have produced a costing tool for hand hygiene in domestic settings, in collaboration with WASHEconomics, with inputs from a number of partners, including the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, the World Bank and WaterAid. The tool is available on the WHO website here.
Case studies on COVID-19 response programmes
We continue to encourage peer learning by sharing case studies that showcase concrete examples of policy, advocacy and programme implementation designed to address, or adapted to, the challenges of the pandemic.
Our first case study, this month comes from Oxfam in collaboration with Unilever’s Lifebuoy soap brand which jointly developed Mum’s Magic Hands (MMH). The MMH approach uses a combination of storytelling, interactive activities and nudges to increase the practice of handwashing with soap and water. This case study highlights how the rollout of the approach in 10 countries during the pandemic has enabled them to incorporate men and other caregivers into the approach, rather than a sole focus on mothers.
A MMH session in Kanchanpur – Oxfam Nepal
Our second case study comes from Alfluence Inc, under a project led by Amref Health Africa in Kenya and supported by the Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition. Interventions focussed exclusively on social media, targeting 18-40-year-olds in urban areas across 13 countries across Kenya to disseminate COVID-19 preventative messages. This included the identification of pre-existing influencers (via advanced algorithms) who were mobilised to take part in a 4-month behaviour change communication campaign to disseminate COVID-19 preventative messages.
Left image: Screenshot of an influencer’s Facebook post displaying branded content, ‘Ask Dr. Pamoja’ TV series produced under the ‘Password’ behaviour change campaign. | Right image: Screenshot of an influencer’s Instagram post displaying personalised content. | AInfluence Inc communication campaign, Kenya
Other recent additions to our collection of now nearly 40 case studies have been about:
Abs Development Organisation for Woman and Child (ADO) in Yemen who have responded to COVID-19 targeting school and internally displaced settings through hygiene awareness sessions, provision of hand washing stations and hygiene items.
WaterAid’s handwashing on wheels in Bangladesh, which is an innovative hand washing unit that is mobile and accessible to everyday commuters across a range of cities.
Action Contre La Faim’s use of a Community Perception Tracker process to follow, and respond to, perceptions about COVID-19 in communities in Zimbabwe
Social media channels
Follow us on Twitter @hygiene_hub, Facebook @covid19hygienehub and LinkedIn to get updates from the Hygiene Hub through our social media channels.