A woman in a refugee camp in Bangladesh washes her hands using a prototype for the handwashing station. "... [T]he community is part of the design process," says Oxfam's Enamul Hoque. Photo: Fabeha Monir/Oxfam

In a camp for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, the first case of COVID-19 was detected in May. The arrival of the disease is unwelcome anywhere, but no one wants to see what happens when the virus gets a toehold in communities like these.

"Forty thousand people per square kilometer," says Enamul Hoque, Oxfam's coordinator for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) in the Rohingya camps. "You can't imagine how crowded the camps are."

While existing handwashing facilities are effective against diarrheal disease, they have shared surfaces that could be vectors for the hyper-contagious new virus. So Hoque and his team set out to create a safer design.

Hand-cranked water spigots were out, foot pedals were in, and simplicity was key. So were the contributions of the local community, especially women and girls, who have the most responsibilities related to water.

"This process helped girls take charge of a piece of their lives," says Hoque. "Girls stuck in the camps have almost no space to exercise their minds and their power. We invited them to think like architects and design something that would benefit them and their families."

It's your support as a member of the Oxfam community that makes these projects possible. In Bangladesh, Oxfam and 23 Bangladeshi partner organizations have stepped up our work on helping the poorest communities gain access to clean water and sanitation facilities to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

Read more about our community-designed handwashing facilities here.

"Having a handwashing station near the home makes it much more likely that people will practice safe hygiene," says Oxfam innovation officer Iffat Fatema. "Which means that in this emergency, the handwashing stations will almost certainly save lives. [The women] will be the superheroes."

The first 300 stations will be rolled out soon and distributed around three camps. Every aspect of them, from the size and shape of the basin to the height of the water tank has been selected by the women and girls who will use it most. And if the people who use them have more to say, the Oxfam team will go back to the drawing board to make adjustments.

"These stations," Hoque says, "are dedicated to the refugee women."

Thanks to dedicated supporters like you, Oxfam and partners are providing water, sanitation, and hygiene support to 173,000 camp residents and 9,000 people in the surrounding communities. You make our continued commitment to fighting poverty around the world possible.

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