Description of the Project

Hands4health is a four-year research project (2021-2024) supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) through the TRANSFORM Programme. The project comprises ten partners, who are led by the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW).  The project focuses on the most vulnerable in conflict-affected areas, including remote rural communities and internally displaced people in four countries, and benefits an estimated 97,000 people.

In Mali and Burkina Faso, the project concentrates on the staff working in primary health care facilities, whereas in Nigeria and Palestine, the intervention tackles students in primary schools.   Hands4health adopts a systemic and holistic approach to tackle the challenges related to hand hygiene, sanitation and water quality in the target institutions – schools and HCFs without functional water supply.

The systemic approach encompasses 5 pillars, with a research-into-action mindset: 

1. Understanding the barriers to change through the development of a Theory of Change; 
2. Systematising a behaviour change approach based on the Ranas framework; 
3. Implementing a hardware component;  
4. Developing an enabling environment for the sustainability and replicability of the approach; 
5. Implementing an impact evaluation.