Clean wateraccess photo_essay_swash+

Clean Water Access for Students

Rivers, lakes and creeks are widely used by students and the community as their main source of water.

Before God Aburo Primary School received a borehole as part of the SWASH+ Project, this muddy and stagnant creek was used for drinking and handwashing water.

SWASH+ baseline data revealed that the average distance to primary water source in the rainy season was 232 meters (.14 miles) for all schools, but during the dry season the average distance students would travel was 1,223 meters (.78 miles) for water.

The distance and time students must travel for water can impact their attendance and performance at school.

In some schools without water access, pupils must bring water from home in order to drink and wash their hands throughout the day. Teachers are concerned that this system makes it difficult to ensure water quality.

Schools need on-site access for when rivers, lakes and wells run dry or prove to be too far away.

Rainwater harvesting provides one option.

Boreholes on school grounds can also provide easy access to safe water. SWASH+ provided improved water sources, such as rainwater harvesting systems and boreholes to assess the impact of improved school water, sanitation and hygiene.

A SWASH+ study found a 66% reduction in diarrheal prevalence and a similar reduction in days of illness among pupils in “water scarce” schools that received water supply, hygiene promotion, water treatment and sanitation, compared to pupils in water scarce control schools (Freeman, 2012).

Access to a water source is not enough to improve students’ health and attendance—water must be consistently treated in order to be safe for drinking, and it must be provided every day.

Schools received water storage containers and WaterGuard, a water chlorination solution, as part of an intervention package to improve school WASH. However, an evaluation two years later found that only 36% of school provided drinking water on the day of the visit. Twenty percent of schools reported treating drinking water, but only 9% had measurable levels of chlorine.

The top reasons for not treating the school drinking water were related to cost or low priority (Saboori, 2010).

Water vessel taps frequently break, making water storage difficult. Funding to repair the taps is very limited and prioritization of these

repairs over other school needs is low.

Keeping the school water containers clean can also be a struggle, especially without soap or necessary supplies.

Water access, consistent provision, and daily treatment are all crucial. Schools need the resources for initial infrastructure investments for boreholes and water storage containers, but also recurrent funds for infrastructure maintenance and purchase of consumables like WaterGuard and soap.

References Freeman, MC., Clasen, T., Dreibelbis, R., Saboori, S., Greene, L., & Rheingans, R.

(2012).‘The impact of a school-based water supply and treatment, hygiene, and sanitation program on pupil diarrhea: A cluster-randomized trial’

Saboori, S., Mwaki, A., & Rheingans, R. ‘Is soapy water a viable solution for handwashing in schools?’ Waterlines 29:4.

Photography by CARE/Brendan Bannon. Photo essay by Julie Straw; edited by Malaika Cheney-Coker.

SWASH+ is a five-year applied research project to identify, develop, and test innovative approaches to school-based water, sanitation and hygiene in Nyanza Province, Kenya. The partners that form the SWASH+ consortium are CARE, Emory University, the Great Lakes University of Kisumu, the government of Kenya, and the former Kenya Water for Health Organisation (KWAHO), and Water.org. SWASH+ is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Water Challenge. For more information, visit www.swashplus.org.