Physical Health Kenya Project #31817

Clean water for 1 new person every 10 seconds

by World Vision

Project Report | Sep 17, 2018
Global Water - Semiannual report

By Bernadette Martin | Corporate Engagement Manager

Nur and her daughter

In alignment with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), World Vision’s WASH programming strategically focuses on universal and equitable WASH access. World Vision and our partners are committed to positively impacting the lives of millions through life-saving WASH services.

Fiscal year 2018 is a milestone year for the World Vision Global WASH Program. With this semiannual report, we reached the midpoint of our five-year commitment of serving 20 million people with water by 2020. We are thrilled and humbled to share we now have reached 10.4 million people with clean water since September 2015, including 1.5 million during the first half of FY18. This achievement was made possible because of your support.

Through our partnership, we helped provide communities in rural populations with sustainable water points, including hand pumps, mechanized solar-powered water systems, and spring protection systems. This approach was used to reach a total of 9.1 million people in 40 countries.

In response to our call to reach the most vulnerable, World Vision also is reaching many people in fragile states by rehabilitating municipal water systems. Since 2016, we reached 1.3 million people with municipal water in the Middle East region (see global achievements and municipal outcomes on Page 3).

As we enter into this next phase of our five-year goal, we also will work to deepen the impact of our sanitation and hygiene work. The preliminary results of our multicountry evaluation performed by the University of North Carolina Water Institute indicated the need for improved sanitation, hygiene, and microbial water quality at the household level, in schools, and in healthcare facilities.

Already, we are working to improve sanitation and hygiene programming. World Vision is increasing the capacity of our teams to conduct effective behavior change, including working with faith-based leaders and training children to serve as positive change agents in communities. Through our collaboration with Sesame Workshop, we continue to expand the WASH UP! program in more schools across 11 countries, and behavior-change efforts such as Community-Led Total Sanitation. As a result, 9,608 villages were certified as Open Defecation Free since 2015.

We celebrate these achievements, and for being on track to reach our 2030 goal of 50 million people. We do, however, realize our work is far from being done and is only possible with additional support. Our goal is audacious and requires partnering with communities, governments, the international development sector. Together, we will work to maintain our current rate of reaching one new person with clean water every 10 seconds (3.1 million people annually).

Through our Global WASH Program, we continue to work to bring quality, innovative, and adaptive programs, sharing what we learn along the way. World Vision will seek additional, and strengthen existing, partnerships to improve impact in our WASH programs. These strategies have proven to be effective, and have helped us achieve this milestone over the last 2.5 years. They also will help propel us toward reaching our 2030 goal.

As we work together, with everyone doing their part, we can achieve a world where everyone has access to clean water and safe sanitation and hygiene. Thank you for taking this journey with us.

IMPACT STORY: Dignity for Mothers

Of all her worries since escaping the violence in Myanmar, Nur (pictured left) is thankful that she no longer fears being sexually harassed while collecting water for her children.

Nur lives in a refugee camp in Bangladesh, and would walk 30 to 40 minutes just to collect water from a canal. She always went with a group of women for fear of being sexually assaulted. Some 5,617 cases of gender-based violence have been reported in

the refugee camps in Bangladesh since August 2017, according to a recent Inter-sector Coordination Group report. The risk of assault increased at night because of insufficient lighting in the refugee camps.

If Nur collected water during the day, she had to take her children, ages 2 and 7, with her on the long walk in the hot sun. Her husband could not stay with them because he had to line up for food and other relief items being distributed in the camp. “There have been stories of children being kidnapped, so I couldn’t leave them alone in our tent,” said Nur. “I didn’t mind if I had to keep going back to get more water, as long as I was sure that my children were safe.” Sadly, the contaminated canal water made Nur’s whole family sick. Her children, and her husband often suffered from diarrhea.

Now with clean water just a stone’s throw away from their tent, Nur is at peace. She doesn’t have to worry about her children contracting waterborne diseases, or for their personal safety. “This water pump means a lot to me and my neighbors,” she shared, referring to the deep tube well that World Vision, in partnership with UNICEF, installed near her tent. It is one of 54 deep tube wells that provide clean, safe water to 54,000 refugees.

Nur’s daughter, Jannat, 7, likes the new well, too. “Now I can drink as much water as I want without having to walk far with my mother to get more. I have more time to play and I don’t have to walk in the hot sun.” Jannat even helps her mother by collecting water with her own small bucket.

To help more families, World Vision recently received a $1.7 million grant from UNICEF to install 56 additional wells and construct 1,850 latrines, as well as safe bathing spaces for women and girls. The one-year project will benefit 1.2 million people in the refugee camps and surrounding communities in Bangladesh.

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Jun 20, 2018
Clean Water Sends Children Back To School

By Paul Nkhata | Donor Liaison, World Vision Malawi

Pumping water from the school borehole

School was not an attractive place for children of Mzandu village and other surrounding villages. Chibweya School, in Mzandu village did not have access to potable water and the closest source of dirty water was not easy to reach. The school lies on an upland area and the closest shallow well was about 400 meters down a steep slope. In trying to keep the classroom environment clean, each pupil in the senior class was requested to bring a bucket of water to school every day. This was hard work and children began to avoid school and the struggle of carrying 5 -10 liters of water every day. Those who lasted up to grade 8, endured years of labor to attain their education. “I am now in grade 8. The years I have been at the school have been painful because I had to carry a bucket of water to school daily,” explained Chikondi.

The story for students changed when World Vision’s Water Project provided a borehole. The school committee, along with community members from surrounding villages, made their contribution of local materials to ensure the borehole was installed.

Now, the learners no longer carry water from their homes. The classrooms are clean and are mopped daily since they have sufficient water unlike in the past when they had to sparingly use the available water brought from home. It is appealing to go to school. “For me going to school is no longer a burden now but attractive. The borehole has relieved me from the heavy burden we used to have in the past,” said Chikondi.

Mikasi, a boy also in grade 8, highlighted that, it was difficult for him too. Fetching water for the homes is usually done by women and girls in the community but due to the demands of the school, he also had to carry water. “If it were not for my parents being tough on me, I would have dropped from school to run away from such a shame and labor,” said Mikasi. The borehole has removed the burden of carrying water daily by the learners and the pupils can now drink safe water at any time. Before, sanitation and hygiene was heavily compromised. There was no water for washing hands after visiting the toilet due to scarcity of the resource. Now, hand washing facilities are available at the latrine site.

The borehole provided by World Vision is a great miracle for this isolated school. Allan Chunga, teacher and Patron for the school WASH club said, “There was no better blessing that World Vision could have given to the school, than a borehole.” The borehole has not only contributed to improve lives of the learners but even the teachers and their families have benefitted. The borehole is serving the school and three surround-ing villages. “Thank you World Vision,” said Allan.

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Mar 29, 2018
A Place of Hope in the Dry Land

By Justus Koech | Donor Liaison, World Vision Kenya

Dhahaba shares her story waiting at the borehole

“When there is rain, there is life. The land is green, the animals are healthy and there is plenty of milk. But now, the children drink strong tea (without milk),” Dhahaba lamented. “The children used to eat meat and milk. Now there is no meat, no milk,” she reminisces.

She has come from “Bhadhia” meaning ‘in the grazing bush’ or ‘bushy plains’ where nomadic Somali pastoral-ist live and move around as they keep their livestock. She is pregnant with her 7th, adding on to the six chil-dren she already has, ages 2 to 14 years. Meet Dhahaba, about 37 years old. She has come to Abdi Waqo borehole, about an hour walk from where she lives. Everywhere is dusty and brown except for the trees, which are mostly dry shrubs. Abdi Waqo borehole is the only water source in a radius of about 24 km (11 miles) especially this time of drought. When it rains, some villagers use ponds that collect surface water but soon those dry up.

Dhahaba informs us that she is going to get home at about 4pm from the walk with her donkey cart, carrying nine, 4-gallon con-tainers of water that will last her two days. “The water will be used for cooking, cleaning the children, washing clothes, I’ll give some to the weak cows and goats that cannot trek to the borehole,” she shared. Her livestock will come the following day to drink in the borehole. This is the only water source here, the only alternative there is. Dhahaba has remained in a village called Eyyrib for about 2 years, since the livestock cannot migrate far due to lack of pasture. They will stay in Eyyrib until the rains come, whenever it will come. They have not seen any rain for the last 2 years. Once the rains come, the pastures will come and they can move to new pasturelands as their nomadic life dictates.

World Vision, through the Kenya Resilient Arid lands Program for Integrated Development (Kenya RAPID), in partnership with others, is rehabilitating (fix pumps, extend pipeline) and enhancing the Abdi Waqo bore-hole’s water pumping capacity by installing solar and a generator powered pump. World Vision has also in-stalled distribution pipeline to the small town and a line to the school, about 2 km away. There are 3 collection kiosks strategically located in the small town. According to Joseph Egesa, the World vision Kenya RAPID project manager, the school children in Abdi Waqo are also remaining in school because of the borehole.

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