TRANSFORM hands4health: first stakeholder workshop held

Since December 2020, Ranas Ltd. is part of a large consortium of five universities, four NGOs and two private partners within the 4-year project "Hands4Health: Hand hygiene, water quality and sanitation in primary health care and schools not connected to functional water supply system". The project is led by Dr. Maryna Peter from FHNW, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, and financed within the TRANSFORM call of SDC, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC project page).

The hands4health project will be active in four countries, 80 health care facilities and schools and target 97.000 beneficiaries. Project activities are clustered into eight work packages.

On 22 April 2021, a first kick-off workshop with 70 participants from project consortium partners, donors, local authorities and other national and international stakeholders was organized.

Nathalie Wyser (SDC) introduced the TRANSFORM Programme, which promotes applied, need-based research conducted by researchers and implementing partners. The goal is to analyse, develop and test innovative solutions for sustainable development challenges in developing countries.

Dr. Maryna Peter (FHNW), Dr. Mirko Winkler (Swiss TPH) and Matthias Saladin (Skat Foundation) presented the hands4health project, which will develop a comprehensive approach to hand hygiene, water quality and sanitation in primary health care facilities and schools not connected to a functional water supply system. The project will also ensure wide stakeholder engagement for knowledge and expertise sharing and learning. Videos were shown on the key challenges in the countries in which the project will be active: Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria, and Palestine. The recording of the workshop is accessible on Youtube.