Strengthening rural households hygiene and sanitation in developing countries using locally available resource: Aloe vera soap production in Negash Kebele, Tigray, Ethiopia

In Ethiopia local communities widely utilize natural resources, but local innovative knowledge on utilization of natural resource by communities usually takes long time even centuries to be implemented. Use of Aloe vera plant for hygiene and sanitation is among the natural resource which is not yet utilized by local communities in northern Ethiopia. Therefore, a participatory study focused on the utilization and conservation of Aloe vera plant for promoting hygiene and sanitation was carried out in Wukro in Tigray, Ethiopia, where there is a poor level of hygiene and sanitation but there is relatively high prevelence of Aloe vera plant. The overall objective of the study was to assess the utilization of locally available natural resources in rural household’ hygiene and sanitation in Wukro district, Tigray, Ethiopia. The specific objectives of the study were to: (i) determine the level of awareness of the availability of natural resources for use in promoting hygiene and sanitation, (ii) assessing the level of technical knowledge amongst households with regard to using natural resources like Aloe vera in hygiene and sanitation, and (iii) document the conservation practices for natural resources such as Aloe vera used in hygiene and sanitation. Sixteen rural households were selected purposively for this study. Result indicated that 62.5% of the households in Wukro were not aware of the benefits of Aloe vera as soap and gel prior to the study. There was also technical knowledge gap among the households. Almost 44% of the households had no technical knowledge while the remaining (56%) had been trained in Aloe vera use for hygiene and sanitation. Although households who participated in trainings were more likely to conserve natural resource like Aloe vera, this was not widely practiced. Overall, Aloe vera plant had a positive effect on encouraging rural households’ hygiene and sanitation. It is therefore recommended that prolonged effort be put on conservation and awareness creation on the use of Aloe vera plant for promoting household hygiene and sanitation.