"Food Hygiene Practice in Nepal; an Experience from Formative Research" WASH Forum 25th Series

WASH Forum 25^th series was conducted at ENPHO hall on 30^th August 2013 on topic "Food Hygiene Practice In Nepal; An Experience from Formative Research" with an objective is to share the knowledge and experience of formative research on food hygiene; and analyze critically on issues of food hygiene and its practices in Nepal.                  

Mr. Om Prasad Gautam, Public Health Expert of Nepal, Principal Investigator (PI) and from London school of hygiene and tropical medicine (LSHTM) was the key speaker for Discussion forum with 35 energetic youths from Public health, Environment science and Social science sector. Mr. Gautam shared his knowledge and experience regarding the interventional research recently being implemented at Baluwa and Naya Gaun VDC of Kavre District among the mothers having children's between 6 month and under 5 years. Mr. Gautam highlighted the importance of Food hygiene in all levels, especially for children's.  He motivated the youths to spread awareness of Food hygiene as it is one of the most important health issues in the present scenario in our country.

Mr. Gautam said that "changing behavior is very hard .It depends on the nature of setting. The old methods of raising awareness are not suitable, the approach and Setting should be known before implementation." Formative research on food hygiene matters as diarrhea is still 2^nd largest killing disease which is directly linked with food hygiene. He told the new idea for awareness.

In his slides he included the factors contributing for foodborne infection the previous and present changes in food hygiene handling practices of mothers after the interventional research and implementation of behavior changing approaches. The whole session was very much interactive and informative; the youth got to learn many new approaches and information. There was also shown short video regarding the critical times where mothers neglected the proper Hygiene Practices. He also introduced how the behavior of people can be changed in effective way.

Mainly question rose about the formative research regarding sustainabily, effect of education on food hygiene. He replied that it would be implemented in 4 district of Nepal. If it becomes effective then it would be implemented in other places. VDC, FCHVs will contribute in it. He told that Behavior of people affect in food hygiene. Which should be changed and they should be motivated to be ideal mother. 

The programme was then concluded by one of the supportive Paaila Ms. Susmita Paudel former Advocacy Coordinator. Overall program was facilitated by Mr. Roshan Chaulagain and the program was ended with group photo and interaction with participants.

 

Youth Day Celebration with Talk Program on “Scope and Role of Youth in Environment and Health Sector with Bhushan Tuladhar”

Youth Group photo

On the special occasion of International Youths Day (IYD) 12^th august, 2013, Paschim Paaila organized a Talk program on Scope and Role of youth in the sector of Environment and Health with Mr. Bhusan Tuladhar, Environmentalist as resource person for the program.  

Token Of love to Bhushan Sir

Mr.Buddha Bajracharya, Network Coordinator of Paschim Paaila welcomed all the 48 energetic youth from various backgrounds with brief objective of talk program as to get motivated and inspired by Bhushan sir regarding role and scope of youth in sector of environment and health with Grand celebration of IYD with Paschim Paaila. 

Mr. Tuladhar started his session focusing on the role of youth rather than scope with fact that, “Youths are not future but present among them top 5% are in this room.” Youths are for today i.e. youth’s empowerment should be utilized for today. He further focused on how one can utilize the resources that they have. He raised three questions in that case, Where are we? Where do we want to go? And how can we reach there? He mentioned that most of people get confused on where they are? So one should first know that where they are in the present situation.

During the program

He also talked about SWOT/C (Strength Weakness Opportunity Threat/Challenges) in which SW is the internal factor whereas OT is the external factor. He listed as a youth of Nepal, strength of youth from among the youth present in the program which were Unity, Hard working, Energetic, Enthusiastic, Volunteering, Patriotism, Skill and Knowledge, Decision making power, Hopefulness and Patience, Honesty, Self confidence, Cooperative and Optimistic. Among all these points, he focused in the point Optimistic the most.

Similarly, the weakness of youth were listed as Negative Attitude, Confusion, Hopelessness, Lack of patience, Blaming other, Aggressiveness, Jealousy, Low self esteem, Selfishness, Afraid of initiation, Stubborn, Bounding in making decision, Selfish politics, Communication problem and so on. The youths should always focus on positive attitude rather than negative attitude so that they can understand themselves that where they are right now Mr. Tuladhar suggested. He mentioned Success is 90% attitude and 10 % work. Success can start with own strength. He further talked about the entrepreneurship.

He inspired the youth to be proactive along with volunteer spirit. "Don’t depend on other to tell you that what you should do this or that." One should think in a broad way that how he/she can do something different than other.

Participant Interacting

The program moved towards discussion where participants raised lots of queries "what may be the possible threats in the sector of environment and public health? Are they vulnerable?" and the solution were also given to those queries as we must remember “Russian Rule” that “I must do it in order to get rid of it”, must have willingness to learn, courage to make mistake and confidence or pair of support may be missing. Also asked by participant as she wants to do something innovative but have no confidence and what she can do in that case? One of the participants gave suggestion that stand in front of mirror and say that "I am the one I can do, today is my day and start it today." In between of smile and non smile, there is a gap and that gap is the great thing that motivates yourself and other.

At the end of the program Mr. Tuladhar was appreciated with Token of love. Likewise Mr. Bajracharya Thanked all the participants and resource person for making the program a grand success and also collected feedback to make to program more effective in the future with sharing about Emergency Relief Fund (ERF). Some of the youth donated some amount for ERF. Finally a group photo was taken and the floor was closed.

WASH and Emergency July series

WASH Forum July series in titled “WASH and Emergency” was successfully conducted on 26^th July, 2013 at ENPHO Hall. Mr. Rajesh Shrestha, Program manager of Lumanti was the resource person for the event.

The program started with warm welcome by Mr. Roshan Chaulagain Advocacy Coordinator of Paschim Paaila. Welcome speech was given by Project coordinator of ENPHO, Mr. Ash Kumar Khaitu and he mentioned that “Youth loves honor and victory than wealth”.

Resource person, Mr. Rajesh Shrestha started session with experience of WASH and emergency while working at UNICEF for the people suffered from flood during 2004 Koshi Flood. He explained about the disaster, its management cycle and Sphere guideline that can be used in case of emergency. Further he explained about WASH mitigation and the preparedness that we should apply in order to be safe in case of disaster.

Then the session was headed towards discussion where participants asked lots of queries. The queries were related works and helps being given to the people living in Koshi after the Koshi flood and the clarification was given as regular WASH programs are being run after the Koshi flood as they were free from disaster but still needs awareness. Another participant asked that in case of emergency, should we care sustainability or not and he replied that according to disaster and epidemic nature after applying WASH and Emergency for either three or six month, it is send for sustainability.

 

The whole information obtained was summarized by Mr. Buddha Bajracharya, Network Coordinator of Paschim Paaila. And Token of Love was distributed to Mr. Rajesh Shrestha, the resource person by Ms. Urmila Lama, The Paaila of the Year 2012/13. Finally a group photo was taken and the floor was closed.