Water Access, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) Project

In the past few month Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative and GlobeMed at UCLA have taken many strides towards their 2019 goals.

In September of 2018, the Project for Income Generation was started. This project entails giving pigs to each of the six to seven water user committee members of a community and having them care for and breed the pigs. They can then sell pigs to community members and the money earned from selling these pigs can go towards the water source fund to attend to repairs. Community members will then also have an additional source of income that they can use to pay the water user fee. The project was determined to start in a single pilot village before expanding to others based on the projects performance in one village. After an extensive application process, the village of Waluga was selected as the pilot village. Currently, Peter, the MCHI manager, is working with the local sub county leadership and the water user committee of Waluga to find a reliable pig breeder from which to purchase the initial pigs.

The sanitary pad project expansion to Buntubulamu primary school is also underway. Recently, Ruth, the project administrator led an info session for parents as well as a sanitary pad making instructional session for the female students between classes 5 and 7. She reports that the students are very excited and are having a great time learning how to make their own sanitary pads! In a few months, each students at both this school and Johnson Nkosi Memorial Primary School will receive a kit of reusable sanitary pads that last for one year from AFRIpads. As discussed in a previous project update, the choice to purchase sanitary pads was made because it is less expensive and the pads last longer. However students will still receive training on how to make one or two of their own sanitary pads to obtain the skill.

Construction of a new water source in the village of Nsaanvu has recently began. Peter has worked with the community for the past few months to establish a water user committee to be responsible for water user fee collection as well as water source management. He is working with them to provide materials such as a water user committee handbook, fee tracking logs, as well as training. He also worked with the water technician to check the water table to ensure that the land was ideal to be used for the water source. A man from the community graciously donated a piece of his land on which the water source is being built.

The incinerator for sanitary pads was also installed last month. As non-plastic waste materials at the school are repurposed to make charcoal briquettes, hazardous waste such as used sanitary pads and plastic cannot be burned in the same manner. Therefore a safer alternative is through the use of an incinerator which burns the materials at a high temperature but releases the fumes at a higher level to avoid individuals from inhaling the dangerous fumes.

Lastly, the GROW team for the upcoming Summer was selected and is currently being transitioned into their roles by past GROW team members. The team will travel to our partner organization in mid-June and work alongside our partner for seven weeks in order to further foster our partnership and collaboratively improve the project.

As discussed in our previous project update, our team recently decided to pilot an income generation project in the Nama Sub County to help water user committees (WUC) raise money to build security funds to repair borehole damage. Each water user committee member will recieve one pig to care for and eventually the piglets will be sold to raise money for borehole maintenance. The Project for Income Generation (PIG) will be piloted in one village. Based on the outcomes of the project in one village, we will determine whether to implement the project in all of communities we are partnered with. Water User Committees that were interested in leading the pilot village for the PIG project were encouraged to apply.

Peter, the manager of the Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative (MCHI) worked with the Nama Sub County Community Development Officer to distribute applications to water user committees in each of the villages involved in the WASH Project. At the biannual meeting in August, most water user committees were interested in leading the pilot village, but a few in particular stood out as most interested and most prepared. The pilot village will be determined in early January and the project will be initiated in early February.

Another component of our WASH Project is the Sanitary Pad Project. After a cost-benefit analysis, our team determined that building reusable sanitary pads out of raw materials is more expensive than purchasing reusable sanitary pads from an established company called AFRIpads. Therefore, students will still learn how to make reusable sanitary pads from raw materials in order to learn a unique skill, but each female student will receive a set of reusable pads from AFRIpads as they last longer and are less expensive.  

The Sanitary Pad Project was recently expanded to another primary school called Buntubulamu Primary School. Ruth, a teacher and administrator from Johnson Nkosi Memorial Primary School, recently visited Buntubulamu Primary School in mid-November to train students on how to make reusable sanitary pads. These students will also receive reusable sanitary pads from AFRIpads.

Additionally, the water purification system that was installed at Johnson Nkosi Memorial Primary School in February is functioning tremendously. Clean water is readily accessible at all hours and school administration has noticed that students are drinking more water.

Lastly, Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative will start construction of a borehole in the village of Nsaanvu in early January. Peter and the MCHI team have worked with the community to establish and train a water user committee that will care for the borehole’s maintenance as well as the community’s sanitation and hygiene practices.  

Links:

• Visit our website to learn more about our project and partner!