Healthy Homes For All

Healthy-Homes-For-All-North-CarolinaGood homes for everyone is one of the main goals NCRCAP would like to achieve for rural North Carolina communities. Several aspects of home daily life have taken into consideration to solve daily issues such as drinking non-potable water, children poisoning, right wastewater disposal, right use of pesticides and so on. Everyhting is done with the goal to help rural communities to live better.

Healthy Homes for All, what is that? This program is thought especially for Latino community in North Carolina (spanish native spoken). Some surveys conducted by NCRCAP shown that this local community usually lives without basic public health and environmental protection informations, especially when thinking about water and wastewater. That’s why NCRCAP would like to help rural Latino families in NC to help their own quality of life, starting to increase health and safety of their homes.

How this can be done? Simply by giving latino communities the right education about water protection and conservation, water poisoning prevention, septic system maintenance and chemical hazard reduction. The work is done one-on-one with families right in their own homes, so this can be more useful and appreciated by those communities.

To educate both adults and children, many different methods are used, such as flip-charts and board games. For children under six the program is particularly crucial as they are more susceptible to health risks due to water contamination, lead-based paint and environmental hazards in general.

Other than educational activities, NCRCAP provides and coordinates tests of health hazards in the home, at no cost at all. If a rural family is concerned about some possible hazards (i.e. a contamination) they can contact the association and ask for an inspection of the house. Tests include the presence of bacteria in the water and levels of lead and nitrates in it.