Splash works to ensure that all children around the world have safe water, clean hands, and child-friendly toilets.  This section will cover the ways that Splash uses child-centered design, modern manufacturing, continuous improvements, and standards to not only provide access points to water and soap for handwashing, but also increases handwashing rates.  

WHAT THE STANDARD IS: Handwashing infrastructure implementations always include handwashing stations, behavioral nudges, and the required accessory components (taps, piping, pumps, etc.).  This standard will cover how the infrastructure team plans, designs, and installs the infrastructure for Splash implementations that include Hand Washing Infrastructure in their scope of work.

Following a Pre-Implementation Survey, the local WASH Infrastructure Team will begin the design and planning for the implementation of the handwashing infrastructure.  The design and planning phase is centered largely around required site locations and determining the number of stations required based on Splash’s target ratios.

Planning for Handwashing Stations:

1. The first phase of planning is to make sure that handwashing (HW) stations are installed at all key handwashing locations on a site.  These key locations are: every sanitation facility and wherever children receive and/or eat their meals.  

There must be at least 1 HW tap installed for every 3 toilet stalls and/or urinal spaces, and these must be located within 5 meters from the sanitation facility.  This means that for a 10 stall toilet block, there needs to be at least 4 HW taps installed within a 5 meter radius of the toilet block.

There must also be at least one HW station installed near the feeding area of the school.  This must be a different HW station than one installed to serve the users of a sanitation facility.  There should be more than one HW station near the feeding area of larger schools.  This is up to the local WASH Infrastructure Lead to determine how many HW stations should be dedicated to the feeding area.  A suggested number is that there should be at least 1 HW tap near the feeding area for every 150 users in the single largest shift population of the school.

2. The second phase of planning is to make sure that the number of HW stations that need to be installed meets or exceeds the number of stations required by Splash's target ratio.  This calculation is based on Splash’s target ratio of 1 HW tap per 75 users.  The number of users is based on the single largest shift at a site.

• For example, if we have a school site with a total daytime population (students + staff) of 950, and a night school population of 200, then we would select 950 as our largest single shift population.  As always for the storage, drinking tap, and handwashing tap ratios, we include both students and staff in the population numbers.
• Next, based on the ratio listed above, we would need to divide 950 by 75. This yields 13.67 HW taps.
• Then, divide 13.67 taps by the number of taps per Splash HW station (2 HW taps per Splash HW station), and so we then get 6.33 HW stations that need to be installed.  Splash always rounds up to the nearest whole number of stations, so even if that answer would have been 6.1 stations, we would still round up to 7 stations.  If we were to ever round down to the nearest whole number of stations, then our HW tap to user ratio would be worse than 1:75, and that is not acceptable.  Rounding up also helps our installed infrastructure to meet the sites’ future needs as we expect the cities’ populations to continue to grow rapidly.

If at a site that needs 7 HW stations, we install 2 HW stations at the feeding area, and we install 4 HW stations near sanitation facilities, then we would still need to install 1 more HW station in order to meet the ratio.  As with all infrastructure target ratios, the HW station ratios are minimums.  If a site needs more stations than is required by the target ratio, that is okay.  The local infrastructure teams are able to install more HW stations than the target ratio says if the site needs more HW stations.

Splash can never be finished at a site if the site does not meet the required minimum number of HW taps.  If there are physical space constraints, then the local WASH Infrastructure Lead must contact the global WASH Infrastructure Manager about the situation.  Based on new budgeting and site selection processes, the above standards, ratios, and calculations are accounted for in every budget moving forward, thus eliminating the budgetary difficulties with meeting Splash standards.

Existing functional HW taps cannot count towards meeting our target ratios.  The ratios for HW taps to users must be met completely by new Splash stations.  

If a campus has physically separated grades or groups of students (such as a separate kindergarten area), then the above ratio and infrastructure calculations need to be applied to each physically separate group of students and staff on that campus separately.  

Special note regarding nurse's offices and medical rooms at schools: If there is a nurse's office or other medical room at a school, then Splash must make sure that room or office has access to a handwashing tap.  This tap does not need to be a Splash station, but it must be connected to water, have a designated place for soap (soap tray), and be in good working condition.  While required, this extra tap does not count towards meeting Splash target ratios because it is not easily accessible for HW by most of the students.