Access to clean water means healthy schoolchildren and a brighter future
Burkina Faso, Africa – a project run by our partner Helvetas
Project focus: Clean water and better hygiene to fight root causes of poverty
In the province of Gnagna in eastern Burkina Faso, access to safe water and sanitation remains a challenge. There has been made progress in regards of access to drinking water, yet lacking basic knowledge on hygiene contaminates the water.
Nearly 90% of households do not have a latrine and only half of elementary schools have a water point. People are forced to relieve themselves in fields or bushes, often without realizing that they are endangering the health of their community. Women, girls and especially children under 5 years pay the heaviest price in this situation, with 20% of them dying before they reach the age of 5. Diseases related to lack of hygiene represent almost 1/3 of the recorded illnesses in this region. Malnutrition, which is also one of the consequences (due to lasting diarrhea), affects more than 1 in 3 persons.
This project runs in schools and communities enabling access to clean drinking water and promoting good hygiene practices and sanitation.
In total 18 villages, 3.800 children, 28.000 people’s lives are being directly improved by this project. Indirectly 153.000 people benefit from the project.
Since January 2016 Helvetas has been working with the local town councils and organizations in the municipalities of Manni and Coalla to help improve lastingly the health and quality of life of the population.
Pictures used above © Helvetas/ Nomwindé Vivien Sawadogo, Simon B. Opladen
Why access to clean water is pivotal!
Give access to water and end the poverty trap
Clean water means healthy people. Being healthy means children can go to school and adults can work. A water installation in the village allows to grow a garden, have more food, fight malnutrition, and sell some of the harvest to generate an income. Girls* do not need to spend half a day or more fetching water, but instead have time to attend school. Access to safe drinking water has a multiplier effect lifting the chances to leave poverty behind.
* Mostly girls and women are tasked with the household chores, such as fetching water.
Every donation makes a difference!
The below figures are real examples from this project. Donations are used according to the most urgent needs of the communities affected, based on the project measures described further below.
What the project does
Project measures:
– Installation of latrines, water pumps and wash places in villages
– Water installation at schools
– Change of overall hygiene through education in “Blue Schools” (schools that follow the WASH [water, sanitation and health] education approach – an established development aid concept)
– Schoolchildren and voluntary local community members are trained as ambassadors for hygiene behaviour
– Create understanding of correlation between hygiene and diseases
– Creation of school gardens, possible through the new water installation, to support healthy meals at school (incl. education on nutrition and sustainable farming)
– Education and training of “women who heal water” through production of chlorinated water (creating new jobs and income selling the water)
– Menstrual hygiene education at schools (before schoolgirls who had their period used to stay at home during these days and could not attend class)
– Knowledge transfers and vocational skills training to local suppliers on the construction and installation of water cycles, latrines, pipes and sewage systems.
Schoolchildren learn from their teacher why hygiene is so important to live a healthy life.
© Helvetas/ Nomwindé Vivien Sawadogo
A boy explains his family how to use a “tippy-tappy” and correctly wash hands.
© Helvetas/ Nomwindé Vivien Sawadogo
Thanks to the new water pump there is finally enough water to cultivate a school garden.
© Helvetas/ Franca Roiatti
The women’s cooperative learns about the effectiveness of chlorinated water and how to produce it.
© Helvetas/ Franca Roiatti
Video: “Women who heal water”
Project run by our partner Helvetas
Project internal name: LAAFIA (“health” in local language)
Project phase: 2019-2022
Funding: by donations
Helvetas is an independent organization for development (based in Switzerland) who supports poor and disadvantaged women, men, and communities in about thirty developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. Helvetas is committed to a just world in which all men and women determine the course of their lives in dignity and security, using environmental resources in a sustainable manner.
Helvetas works in the areas of securing basic needs (water, food and climate), creating prospects (education, economic development and work), and strengthening good governance (participation, social cohesion and women’s empowerment).
Helvetas also provides humanitarian aid after natural disasters and in emergencies.