Our Hygiene, Our Health in Jordan

In autumn 2021, the nationwide school competition "Our Hygiene, Our Health" (OHOH) was launched in Jordan under the patronage of Dr Nawwaf Mansour Al-Aqil Al-Ajarmeh, His Excellency the Secretary General for Educational Affairs at the Ministry of Education in Jordan (MoE).

OHOH was implemented as the COVID-19 relevant version of the "Toilets Making the Grade" (TMG) competition in Jordan. The concept is the same and the tools are very similar to the original contest, but the topic shifted away from sanitation and hygiene to the prevention of COVID-19 transmission. All schools in Jordan were required to implement the "roadmap for going back to school" ordered by the MoE. In this Jordanian government's handbook, employees in the education sector can find practical measures to create a healthy and safe environment for learners despite the pandemic. Public schools were invited to participate in the OHOH competition by the MoE to motivate them to implement this roadmap.

Of over 2,000 interested schools, 224 entries were submitted and approved by the end of 2021. After the scoring of the school entries through the jury, the supreme jury will have calls with the finalist schools to do reality checks and evaluate the impact of the measures taken. The OHOH model schools are expected to be crowned at the award ceremony in March or April 2022.

The OHOH competition in Jordan uses the web portal through which schools can register and submit their entries. All relevant documents, a detailed timeline and answers to the most frequently asked questions can also be found there. In addition, the schools were provided with an inspiration package and posters with suggested measures, which was developed by GTO, GIZ and the MoE. The posters show eight behaviours to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 based on the GTOs "My Healthy Friends" characters.

Currently, the lessons learned for the competition implementation are being prepared. If the COVID-19 situation allows, a team from GTO will travel to Jordan for this purpose. This is of particular interest since this round of the competition was a pilot in terms of setting up and using the web portal, as well as the introduction of the new topic of COVID-19. Beside the aim to improve the overall competition, the results can feed into reporting for OHOH.

The competition is supported by the GIZ programme “Improving the Learning Environment in Public Schools in Host Communities” (ILEPS). The GTO provides the competition methodology and supports GIZ and the Ministry of Education in Jordan in adapting the competition to the local context and implementing it.