As well as ensuring the family is using water that is safe to drink, the focus should be on reducing the potential for the child to come into contact with faeces directly and indirectly. These barriers could include:

• ensuring all family members use a latrine. If the child is not old enough to use the latrine themselves, the mother or other carer should dispose of the child’s faeces in a latrine.
• ensuring all family members wash their hands at the appropriate times, especially before feeding the child. Teach the child to wash their own hands.
• not giving the child access to raw foods
• keeping food and wastes covered to reduce the problem of flies
• discouraging the child from picking things up in the street or off the floor
• discouraging the child from putting their fingers in their mouth.

• Effects on health: Good sanitation and waste management help to keep people separate from potential sources of pathogens. They reduce the risk of contaminating water supplies with pathogens and discourage the transmission of disease.
• Effects on education: Healthy children have fewer days off school through illness. When they are at school, healthy children learn better than sick children. Providing good sanitation facilities encourages children to attend school, particularly girls during their menstrual periods.
• Effects on economic conditions: The health benefits promoted by good sanitation and waste make for a more productive community. Less money is spent on healthcare and people lose fewer days off work through caring for the sick.
• Effects on the environment: Good sanitation and waste management means that there will be less faeces and waste deposited in public places and less pollution of the water and soil.