View source for Sustainable Sanitation for Schools

[[Image:susana logo.png|right|90px|link=http://susana.org]]
[[Image:pupils in zimbabwe.png|thumb|right|200px|Pupils at a school in Epworth, Harare in Zimbabwe learn to build their own toilets: digging the shallow pit of an Arborloo inside a concrete ring beam (source: Aquamor, Zimbabwe, 2009)]]

Sustainable sanitation is defined as promoting and improving health and hygiene, protecting environmental and natural resources, and being technologically and operationally appropriate, financially and economically viable and socio-culturally and institutionally acceptable ([http://www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/270 SuSanA, 2008]).

Access to safe sanitation is a human right that has to be recognised and fulfilled ([http://www.susana.org/en/resources/library/details/1211 Stock, 2011]). The major challenge to reach the Millennium Development Goal for improved sanitation (MDG 7) is not merely technical nor economic, but lies in raising awareness on preventable sanitation-related diseases, changing traditional views and encouraging habits for good hygiene ([http://www.childinfo.org/files/A_Snapshot_of_Drinking_Water_in_Africa_Eng.pdf UNICEF, WHO, 2008]).

Behaviour is formed during childhood and therefore education on health and hygiene in schools is vital to improving conditions of people’s lives from childhood to adulthood. School sanitation and hygiene programs can have important outreach functions for targeting households. Children have demonstrated that they can be effective agents of change as demonstrated in School-led Total Sanitation programs in Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sanitation issues for urban schools tend to differ somewhat from those at rural schools. For example, urban schools often have less space, but sometimes have the possibility to connect to a centralised sewer system. Some technologies like pit latrines and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arborloo Arborloos] might be feasible for rural schools but not for most urban schools. The involvement of parents and the wider community might also have a different intensity at urban schools. Nevertheless, the same guiding principles apply to school sanitation in all settings.