Mainstreaming of protection in a WASH programme ensures that:

• WASH teams contribute to the wider humanitarian goal of safe programming, in particular by mitigating the concern that WASH goods and services provided might make affected communities more vulnerable to violence, sexual exploitation or coercion.

WASH staff should:

• Be briefed by a Manager on the protection threats that they might encounter during the course of their work, and how they could respond.
• Ensure that protection information relevant to WASH (including land-ownership) is collected and analysed during assessments.
• Ensure that people’s safety is taken into consideration in programme design e.g. siting and lighting of facilities, distance to water points, community meetings and management of NFI distributions.
• Understand the relevant linkages for channelling information on protection trends. With the support of the Programme Manager or other Oxfam colleagues, information could be passed to the Protection Cluster, UNHCR or individual agencies dealing with protection issues.
• Understand the boundaries between protection programming and safe WASH programming.

Health and Safety

All WASH staff have responsibility for health and safety: every WASH activity should be examined from the point of view of health and safety, and support should be requested if staff are uncertain or concerned about a health and safety issue.

• Health and safety issues should be considered for every WASH activity including latrine digging, desludging, NFI distributions, solid waste management, hand-dug wells, children’s activities, spring development, drilling, vector control, bladder or tank construction etc. 
• Each work site should have a first aid kit and someone who knows how to use it.
• WASH field staff should be properly dressed (e.g. footwear) and equipped (e.g. sunhat, raincoat, personal protective equipment) to perform their job according to local field conditions.