Huguette Yago is a water and sanitation engineer for AGED, an Oxfam partner. She carries out hygiene awareness sessions with internally displaced people, as well as managing groups of volunteers who maintain the latrines. Photo: Sylvain Cherkaoui/Oxfam
Water and sanitation engineer Huguette Yago faces a challenge of titanic proportions in this COVID-19 pandemic – a lack of water. "Without water, there is no hygiene," she says.
In the past year, armed groups have devastated villages in the north and east of Burkina Faso, leaving more than 800,000 people displaced. They have fled to urban centers or sites designated for internally displaced people (IDPs), where overcrowding and lack of access to water are huge problems for families and host communities.
With Oxfam's support, staff at the Association for Environmental Management and Development (AGED), like Yago, are doing everything they can to help displaced people and prevent the spread of disease. Yago oversees six community workers who are responsible for raising awareness about hygiene measures, such as frequent handwashing with soap and water, wearing a mask, and social distancing.
It's your support as a member of the Oxfam community that makes these efforts possible. In Burkina Faso, we are working with partners such as AGED to provide humanitarian assistance to internally displaced people and host communities in the region by supplying clean water, sanitation, and hygiene equipment.
Read more about our work to reduce the risk of disease for those most vulnerable.
Conditions in refugee camps make slowing the spread of diseases like COVID-19 a challenge, but Yago and her team don't give up.
"Everyone knows their job. We have three awareness sessions per week, and the hygiene committee – made up of volunteers – takes over when we are not there," she says. "All of this requires huge resources, but health is priceless."
For now, there are no cases of COVID-19 at the IDP sites where Oxfam operates. But thanks to the work of people like Yago, if the disease arrives, we will be ready. For her, it is essential to prevent the spread now, in particular by ensuring that site managers are well informed about the instructions given by the World Health Organization so that they can in turn educate their peers.
"If the hygiene measures are applied, this will prevent the virus from spreading in these sites," she says.
Thanks to our dedicated community, Oxfam is working alongside partners such as AGED in Burkina Faso to improve hygiene and sanitation for displaced people. Your support makes it possible for us to continue our commitment to fighting poverty around the world.
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