Dubai Cares Initiative in Mali (DCIM) for WASH in schools

The Dubai Cares WASH in Schools Initiative in Mali was a three-year project implemented by a partnership of five international organizations (UNICEF, CARE, Save the Children, WaterAid, Oxfam) and funded by Dubai Cares. The program aimed to support the National Strategic Plan for Hygiene Education in Schools, adopted in 2011 by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the ministries of WASH.

The DCIM program delivered a comprehensive WASH package to 916 primary and secondary schools in six of Mali's nine regions (Bamako District, Koulikoro, Gao, Mopti, Timbuktu, and Sikasso) from 2011 to 2014. Intervention activities included installing or rehabilitating water points and latrines; distributing WASH supplies including handwashing and drinking water containers, soap, anal cleansing kettles, trash bins, brooms, and disinfectant; and carrying out hygiene promotion activities in and around the schools, training teachers and school management committees, establishing and training school hygiene clubs, and establishing financial, WASH governance and material management systems at the school level.

Emory University collaborated with Dubai Cares and the implementing partners to conduct a research and learning agenda alongside the program. We worked with program staff to develop a program-wide impact evaluation, that began data collection in the Fall of 2012. We executed several targeted applied learning projects at a smaller scale during the course of the project. The goal of our collaboration was to provide evidence for the link between school WASH and educational attainment as well as health, and also to build local partner capacity in monitoring, evaluation, and learning.

Publications:

  1. Uncovering the challenges to menstrual hygiene management in schools in Mali (2015)

  2. The Impact of a School-Based Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Program on Absenteeism, Diarrhea, and Respiratory Infection: A Matched–Control Trial in Mali (2016)

  3. The Role of Adherence on the Impact of a School-Based Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Intervention in Mali (2017)

  4. The impact of water consumption on hydration and cognition among schoolchildren: Methods and results from a crossover trial in rural Mali (2019)

 

Study Location

Mali

 

Target Population

Primary schools and school children

 

Principal Investigators

Matthew Freeman

 

IMPLEMENTING partners

UNICEF, CARE, Save the Children, WaterAid, Oxfam

 

Funders

Dubai Cares

 

Project Staff

Victoria Trinies, Joshua Garn, Anna Chard, Bethany Caruso