Date of Award

6-2015

Degree Name

Master of City and Regional Planning

Department/Program

City and Regional Planning

Advisor

William Riggs

Abstract

In India poor sanitation accounts for 1,600 daily deaths of children under the age of five (Dasra, 2012). The societal and environmental conditions in India and many other developing countries have continuously stood as barriers to facilitating changes in sanitation behavior. Efforts made to improve hygiene have continuously faced opposing forces including major gaps between the supply and demand of sanitation. This paper will focus on one pilot program conducted in Chennai, India over the summer of 2014. This program was designed to teach school children safe sanitation and hygienic habits by providing a guiding tool to teachers. The study analyzed qualitative observational data collected over the seven-week pilot program period to identify the barriers to implementation experienced in this case study. The results indicate that the school administration was the greatest barrier to implementation in this case study. The results also highlight the contextual sensitivity of each of the barriers and their relationships to one another. The findings suggest that depending on the context of implementation of a health, hygiene, and sanitation program these barriers may be re-ordered in hierarchy to work towards achieving sustainable programs.

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