The problem of water, Sanitation and Hygiene in both communities and primary schooling in Kenya has won the hearts of Donor communities like the United Sates of America with her Foundations, Organizations and Water partners through the uniquely designed SWASH+ Project, Fred Obera finds out.
Water is a basic need and a human right. In Kenya since it attained her independence in early 1960s, her densely population lacks access to clean water. But the emerging scarcity of water supply and the limitation of fresh and clean drinking water, quality sanitation and healthier standardized hygiene has affected both learning in schools and living in communities in the backyard of the Kenyan rural. With this laxity of water, it has affected all social, cultural, economic and ecological aspects of the high growth population living in the rural areas whom remain stuck in poverty-since no water, they cannot develop sustainable development approaches that can help them eradicate poverty.
However, the poorest people living in rural home in Kenya have been ignored by the development programmes since their voices are seldom heard and with lower status in community…with their lesser education and awareness, starved with certain constraints such as, mismanagement of water resources by local leaders, government alienation and political suppression further has hampered full participation in local action…in the water or any development policy implementation. According to the SWASH+ project studies done late 2006 and early 2007 in some Districts in Nyanza province in Kenya, identified that even under the most optimistic scenario, more than 3,700 primary schools latrines are required throughout the province to meet the government recommended standards, where 30 boys are required to use utmost one latrine and 20 girls are required also to use utmost one latrine.
Nevertheless, the terror of especially water scarcity in many primary schools is driving pupils away from classrooms to fetch for at least drinking water where they trek at a distance of more than 30 kilometers especially during the dry spells to draw water from rivers, springs, and wells etcetera. Whereas, this little water is mainly used for cooking, washing, drinking, some for domestic animals and finally the little remaining is preserved for cleaning. Surprisingly, this same water from the unprotected source is used for drinking without further treatments.
The research findings carried out by the Emory University and the Great lakes University of Kisumu under the umbrella project SWASH+ that is “Sustaining and Scaling School Water and Sanitation Hygiene Plus Community Impact”, in randomly selected Districts, revealed that the findings of the baseline survey and household survey have strongly indicated that the sampled schools and communities have no access to clean drinking water, bathing, cleaning and washing, no latrines et all in almost 78 per cent communities. The survey went further to elaborate that most communities and schools frequently use untreated water from wells, dams, rivers, springs and any stagnant water for the main purpose of drinking. The survey also established that the hygiene standard was too low therefore, diseases were frequently affecting pupils; such as diarrhea, stomachache, vomiting, headache, malaria, coughing, typhoid, and cholera were noticed among the few sampled 25 pupils per schools, hence this had created poor performance among pupils due to absenteeism with sickness reasons and high school dropouts due to inadequacy of water. Most pupils could absent themselves from school for one month with reason of looking for water or lack of water during the dry spells which sometimes last for over six months.
“Quality sanitation, healthy hygiene and clean water being a prime resource, a basic human need for sustaining life. Our mission with SWAH project is to address those needs in the community through the schools” says, Mathew Freeman the SWASH+ project coordinator from Emory University giving the background on water, sanitation and hygiene in Tom Mboya Labour College in Kisumu City to various district field teams early February.
However, it has been established by the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) that provision of good quality water to the household at the right place, at the right time and of the right quality would as well contribute to eradication of the overwhelming poverty in the developing countries and Kenya attests. Water is essential and a central sector for sustainable development both from macro and micro-perspective. At the macro level specialists claims that water supports projects, while it is essential ingredients for supporting livelihoods at the micro levels. Hence, providing it in an efficient, suitable and equitable manner is an enterprising, because of the existence of equilibrium traps in the water sector in developing countries.
Nevertheless, speaking to community in Nyando district in one of the most alienated school Osiri Migere Primary School, at the end of a long day that had started dawn-on the survey of households water quality; the sample of household drinking water which were collected for the SWASH+ project in this subset community to access current microbial water quality and improvements resulting from the project. The finding at the end of the research later revealed that the economic aspects of most households were subsequently poor in terms of availability of clean drinking water or safe water, healthy hygiene and sanitation, sincerely, bush, sugarcane plantations or compounds were the major latrines and urinal pits. But what was also important to note, the SWASH+ project or other donor communities can ideally improve the poor sense of water resource and management in the communities through schools which is the most lucrative idea so far of improving the life of the poor people, therefore, the food security and environmental sustainability be a clear vision, with the special focus in the reduction of poverty and improvement of human health, through the provision of clean water.
During the research, the communities were in need of the project and were ready from the tone of their talk and willing to demand for improvement of water in their communities. Some were even ready and prepared to embrace the project with labour intensive, both in-kind and cash contributions to the project developments. Their reason for the demand was that the construction of latrines and drilling water machine were expensive to acquire, and since most of their land were especially rocky.
Besides that, Nyanza province being one of the most alienated and politically suppressed by government. One of the only province characterized by the week economies and health systems that have almost collapsed or overburdened by malaria and HIV epidemics, unemployment especially a large boom of youths remaining in a large pool of unemployment pose a serious problems for the province. Where else the demand for clean water, has many different connotations in terms of its definition and role in sustainable water management in both school and communities, since water is viewed as a basic to life.
“ With such constraints, the province should consider to play another crucial role in food safety policy and enforcement in long term, a part from water those are going to be policy for the government but the province and NGOs around, has to rectify for the availability of food security” says the late SWASH+ team, Dr Alfred Luoba.
Giving high priority to the region by the SAWSH+ project and her core-partners to improve water resource management, will not only reduce the thirst for water in the province, but will also help to direct new innovative investments, and new water infrastructure (small-scale and large-scale) which is relevant in many communities to improve the livelihoods, be it to gain water security to remove scarcity, or supplying agricultural, industrial and domestic needs.
Therefore, to fill the gap, water scarcity should be addressed in many developing countries to try to fill the gap, resistance towards infrastructural development to help to kill the striking poverty.
The objectives of the “Sustainable and Scaling School Water and Sanitation Hygiene Plus Community Impact” SWASH+ project is to work with the Kenya government to improve access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene education in Nyanza province, through a consortium made up of CARE, Water Partners International (WPI), and their local implementing partners such as SANA International, the Millennium Water Alliance, the Centre for global Safe Water at Emory University (CGSW), and the Global Water Challenge and others will implement the applied research study and government-led scale-up over the next five years.