Jamshedpur, Oct. 14: Hygiene-conscious East Singhbhum is riding a popularity wave. After bagging a national award recently for its immaculate sanitation drive, the district will now serve as a study model for an international team that researches on the success of Unicef-sponsored projects across the globe.

The 17-member team comprising representatives from eight countries of Asia and Africa will reach East Singhbhum on October 21. This is the first time a district from Jharkhand has been selected as a hygiene model by the international team, which began its annual research campaign a couple of years ago. A few other states such as Karnataka and Gujarat have been part of the drive in the past.

During their four-day stay in the state, the members of the international team will tour four schools in Musabani and Potka blocks of the district. Besides taking tips from the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) for which the district won the Centre-sponsored Nirmal Gram Puraskar this year, they will also study the success of the Integrated Village Planning Programme (IVPP). Officials co-ordinating the visit said that the team would also interact with the district administration for an insight into the success of the sanitation drive in schools.

State co-ordinator of school sanitation hygiene education Gaurav Verma claimed that the successful implementation of Unicef programmes had made the district a fit case for international study. “This is an achievement. The team will see how our ‘school cabinets’ function to implement hygiene on campus and outside. The world will learn from our children,” he said. The team will also study the success story of IVPP in East Singhbhum, which happens to be one of the 17 places in the country where the programme has been implemented.

The visit of the international team assumes significance because the first-ever Global Handwashing Day will be observed tomorrow — October 15, 2008. The UN General Assembly has also designated 2008 the International Year of Sanitation, and Global Handwashing Day will echo and reinforce its call for improved hygiene practices in more than 20 countries across five continents.