For immediate release: July 29, 2009

Contact:  
Dennis Nelson

The Healthy Water, Healthy Habits, Healthy People Educators Guide Addresses Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Topics

Bozeman, Mont. 29 July, 2009 – Project WET’s Healthy Water, Healthy Habits, Healthy People Educators Guide, published in mid-2008 with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), was named a Distinguished Achievement Award winner by the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP) at AEP’s annual June Summit.  Healthy Water, Healthy Habits, Healthy People Educators Guide is the 17th Project WET publication to earn AEP recognition.

As noted on its website, “AEP is a national, nonprofit professional organization for educational publishers and content developers.  For more than four decades, AEP’s Awards have honored outstanding resources for teaching and learning. One of the largest and longest-running awards programs for educational products, AEP’s Awards aim to:

• give credit and recognition to the organizations who are leading the way in the field of educational products and
• set benchmarks to which the rest of the industry can aspire.”

Written specifically for sub-Saharan Africa, the Healthy Water, Healthy Habits, Healthy People Educators Guide enables teachers to take an active role in making a difference in children’s and their families’ lives. Its 40 pages are filled with engaging methods of teaching how common water-borne and hygiene-related diseases are spread as well as the healthy habits one can adopt to stop the spread of these diseases. In addition to learning how to protect their health and that of their families, students gain respect for their water sources while learning how to protect them. The publication also is available in French.

At the same time Project WET published the Healthy Water, Healthy Habits, Healthy People Educators Guide, it also produced two children’s activity booklets: Water is Life and Healthy Water, Healthy Habits, Healthy People, the companion to the Educators Guide, and a Water Cycle Poster.  Together, these four pieces were distributed to nearly a million children at 1,000 schools in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of 2008.  Direction for the publications’ content was provided by 64 African teachers, water experts and scientists at a writing workshop in early 2008.

A USAID project found that water education in Africa appeared virtually non-existent before the start of this project. Research indicated sparse, sporadic efforts being made in educating African children on the use of water in hygiene and sanitation or the water cycle.  Materials found lacked relevance to African children.  USAID needed materials that would make a difference in the lives of children living in sub-Saharan Africa.

And indeed the materials have made a difference.  While evaluating the materials’ effectiveness, Project WET heard from one Ugandan student, “Since we received the materials and brought them home, our mother does not allow us to drink water that is not boiled.”  A teacher also noted, “Students started asking teachers ‘Where is the soap?’ after learning the Hand Washing Song.”  In addition, at Lake Victoria Primary School, the materials inspired students to change their habits, including:  washing their hands more frequently, practicing improved personal hygiene and attending school more regularly. These changes led to ready access to boiled water for consumption and multiple hand-washing stations.

With additional funding from USAID and a partnership with the Uganda Ministry of Education, Project WET now is training more than 350 teachers in Northern Uganda to use the activities in the Educators Guide.

For success stories related to the use of these materials, visit Case Studies.

About Project WET

Since 1984, Project WET, an award-winning 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has dedicated itself to the mission of reaching children, parents, teachers and community members of the world with water education.  Project WET achieves its mission of worldwide water education by:

• publishing water resource materials in several languages.
  
• providing training workshops on diverse water topics (i.e., watersheds, water quality, water conservation).
  
• organizing community water events, such as Make a Splash with Project WET water festivals and the Global Water Education Village™.
  
• building a worldwide network of educators, water resource professionals and scientists.

On the web at www.projectwet.org.