Women for Environment (WE)

We are happy to announce launch of an exclusive training program to empower rural women and unemployed college graduates from rural communities. The program is called Women for Environment (WE) where rural women who are mostly high school dropouts will be trained and hired by us to work within their own communities to change rigid mindset’s towards use of toilets, mensturation hygiene and access to clean water in an environmentally sustainable way!

Step wise execution of WE program:

Please note this is only a brief sketch of the program. Every step has many sub-steps for execution:

• 1. Hire women who are high school dropouts and unemployed college graduates
• 2. Intensive training for 3 weeks to develop them into behavioral skills trainers
• 3. Each trainer gets a basic smart tablet to use for training
• 4. Each trainer gets certified by Non-Water Sanitation on their interpersonal skills, subject matter knowledge
  and their technical skills (like their efficiency in making reports)
• 5. Trainer is guided on how to identify communities for training and how to initiate the training program with
  the help of the local government, WE committee and other NWS staff. The trainer also conducts a pre-survey.
• 6. Trainer to discuss training schedule and plan the training according to the availability of the community
• 7. Trainer starts training for 6 weeks
• 8. After completion of training, for next 3 weeks, the trainer checks the behavioral change among
  the rural people and counsels the community.
• 9. After a month of completion of the training, the trainer conducts a post survey to check the
  efficiency of the training program according to parameters set by the NWS staff.
• 10. NWS publishes report about the efficiency of the program for specific community that underwent
  WE training program. Pre survey and post survey results will be maintained for every rural community that
  ​undergoes the WE program

Frequently Asked Questions about WE (Women for Environment) program

1. What is the objective of this program?

WE program aims at developing a self sustaining, environmentally conscious
platform for WASH in rural communities. With the training NWS wants to raise the
standard of the hygiene, environmental consciousness about sanitation, waste
management and mensuration habits among the rural communities.

2. What is the time duration of the program?

Each of the rural community that undergoes this training program will spend 3 months with
NWS trainer and staff.

3. Who is the focus group of WE training program?

a. Rural Communities with poor WASH habits
b. Rural communities who are using UDDTS build by NWS

4. Why this type of training?

WE training program is inspired by the Barefoot Social work concept. Most of behavioural
changes happen when the person bringing out the change is relatable to the trainees which
most of the times happens when the trainer is from the same culture, community or is
thorough about the trainee’s culture. With this understanding the NWS team is developing an
inclusive training program wherein members of the rural community are enabled to bring out
the change. That’s why one of the critical aspects of WE program is to recruit rural women
who have basic education to work as trainers for the program. We will also seek to employ
unemployed college graduates as trainers from the rural communities

5. What are the outcomes we are seeking from WE program?

WE program aims to have measurable outcomes with regards to behavioural change among
rural communities. And the outcomes are:

• 1. More use of toilets
• 2. Better hand wash hygiene
• 3. Improved home and drinking water storage and usage
• 4. Environmentally friendly Household waste management
• 5. Better menstruation hygiene
• 6. Building a WE committee for to check and reinforce the behavioral change in the
  rural community after the completion of the WE training program.

6. What is the WE committee?

The WE committee is a small group of rural people who would be responsible to check and
reinforce the behavioural change after the completion of the WE training program ( after
three months). NWS along with trainer from the rural community will appoint the WE
committee members. Members from the village government office, the trainer, minimum two
women, one village elder will form the WE committee for a particular village.
WE committee will have minimum five people and maximum ten people.

7. How will the WE committee check and reinforce the outcome of the WE program.

• 1. Weekly or fortnightly meetings to discuss progress and issues of the behavioural
• change
• 2. The trainer should give feedback to the WE committee about the specific challenges
• with regards to the implementation of the WE programme.
• 3. Administration and Infrastructure support like arranging evening sessions in the
• village school’s classrooms.
• 4. Awareness building- NWS main staff will be responsible for orienting the WE
• committee – not trainer

8. What and how will the content of the WE training program be?

The WE training content will follow the concept of blended learning.As the focus group of the
program is rural community who mostly don’t have any formal education so the content will
be task oriented, learning through live demonstrations, imparting information through puppet
shows or skits, one to one counseling and lots of group discussions