A Hygiene Program is Restoring Hope in Northern Ethiopia

A Simple Hygiene Program is Transforming a Post-Conflict School

At Mai-lomin Elementary School in Tigray, Ethiopia, a student club is dedicated to inspiring better water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practices. Club members meet regularly to learn about WASH, teach fellow classmates, and organize school-wide clean-up campaigns. Through these activities, the children not only gain knowledge and leadership skills — they save lives. In Ethiopia, diarrhea claims the lives of 25,000 children under the age of five each year, largely due to a lack of proper WASH infrastructure and practices. By raising awareness and taking action, these students are able to make a real difference.

The student club stems from an Action Against Hunger project to promote hygiene in the school and community. Twice a week, the entire school gathers for a lesson on WASH topics such as:

• handwashing with soap,
• safe water handling and storage,
• menstrual hygiene management,
• toilet use and maintenance,
• solid waste disposal, and
• disease prevention.

Teachers and Action Against Hunger staff use interactive, lighthearted songs, games, and demonstrations to make the lessons fun and memorable.

The messages are simple but powerful. Promoting handwashing alone can reduce diarrhea cases by as much as 30%, according to a 2022 study on the effectiveness of school WASH interventions. Frequent reminders students receive at school to wash their hands help turn good WASH practices into lifelong habits. “The hygiene project has made a real difference,” shared the school director. “Students are practicing handwashing and keeping the school clean.”

Students also receive dignity kits complete with essential hygiene items such as soap, towels, and nail clippers. Basic hygiene items go a long way in creating a clean, safe learning environment. They are especially important for girls, who face extra barriers to education when WASH essentials are not available. According to UNICEF, girls often miss classes when they do not have resources to manage their menstrual hygiene while at school. The absences lead to educational setbacks that have lifelong impacts on girls’ opportunities and incomes. To prevent this, dignity kits for adolescent girls also include underwear, reusable sanitary pads, and informational leaflets on menstrual hygiene management.

The existence of Mai-lomin Elementary School — with a thriving WASH program, at that — is a testament to the incredible resilience of the families living in Tigray, who experienced the greatest barriers to education possible.

How War and Crisis Impacted Education and Health in Tigray

The Tigray region, located in northern Ethiopia, suffered one of the deadliest conflicts in recent history, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, lasting from 2020 to the end of 2022. It resulted in  600,000 deaths, 5.1 million internally displaced people, and widespread damage to infrastructure.

The COVID-19 pandemic overlapped with the start of the conflict, and between the two disasters, approximately 2.4 million school-aged children were prevented from attending school for three years. The European Commission warns that those three years have long-lasting risks for children: “Prolonged absence from school increases children’s vulnerability to various forms of violence, and the disruption in their education may lead to child labor, trapping them in a cycle of poverty.”

At the same time, Ethiopia experienced its worst drought in 40 years, pushing Tigray into IPC Phase 4 (Emergency) food insecurity. The loss of livelihoods, resources, and land was too much for families to withstand. In 2022 alone, UNICEF reported that 4.7 million children under the age of five had become malnourished in Ethiopia.

Getting children back into schools needed to be a top priority after peace talks finally concluded in 2023, but by then, there was little left of the education system. Over 9,000 schools had been destroyed, including many learning materials. Tigray’s Education Bureau reported that about 50% of toilets and 70% of handwashing stations in schools had been ruined. On top of that, families were still grappling with trauma, displacement, extreme poverty, food insecurity, and disease outbreaks like cholera. Investing in education seemed impossible. The enrollment rate fell to just 40%, compared to 85% prior to the conflict.

Rebuilding Schools and Restoring Hope in Post-Conflict Ethiopia

Amid the devastation, Mai-lomin Elementary School was a glimmer of hope. It reopened its doors and gave some children their first experience of attending school; for others, it was a welcome return to routine after years of upheaval. However, the school’s water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities were destroyed — a loss which disrupted the learning environment and left children and teachers vulnerable to the spread of illness. To address this, Action Against Hunger launched a hygiene program: bathrooms were built; water systems were repaired; handwashing stations were installed; and lessons on how to use the new infrastructure were introduced. The broken building evolved into a thriving learning environment where students could focus on their education and dream of possibilities for their future.

Mai-lomin Elementary School is a powerful example of how water, sanitation, and hygiene programs can give a war-torn community the chance to rebuild. Mai-lomin is one of 47 schools in Ethiopia that Action Against Hunger has supported with WASH rehabilitation so far in 2025. Nearly 18,000 students now have improved access to the improved facilities, and staff have reported a noticeable decline in waterborne diseases. Andualem Sisay, Action Against Hunger’s Head of WASH Programs in Ethiopia, says, “The WASH program is not just about clean hands; it is about giving children back their dignity, restoring a sense of normalcy in a post-conflict world, and building a healthier, more resilient community, one student at a time.”