Wash Sanitation project
We are working with schools in Uganda to provide children with somewhere to wash their hands whilst improving the school pit latrines with covers to prevent odour and fly infestation.
Removing a Barrier to Education
It is estimated that 272 million days of schooling are lost globally due to diarrhoea, and through talking to schoolchildren in Kumi, Uganda, we know up to 6 in 10 will have an incidence of diarrhoea in any given month.
Yet, with access to sanitation, this can become an easily preventable disease.
How Can you help?
Just £450 can provide 1 school with a hand-washing station, pressurised covers for their toilets and the education on why it’s important to wash our hands and how to make a ‘Tippy-Tap’ at home. That’s £450 to radically impact 900 schoolchildren and their families. Please consider donating and/or fundraising to support this project!
WASH Sanitation Project
Through funding from the Welsh Government through The Wales for Africa scheme, we will be investing in 24 schools in the Kumi District from 2018-2019. Alongside fundraising from donors, this also allows us to upgrade the pit latrines (5 per school) with pressurised plastic covers that prevent the horrible smell of human waste decomposing in a hot climate plus stop the flies (and mosquitoes) being attracted to it.
As well as installing these effective seals to the pit, we educate the 900+ children per school on the importance of washing their hands with soap and water (after going to the toilet, touching animals and before preparing food and eating) through a fun drama that gets all the children laughing! The older children are shown how to construct a ‘Tippy-Tap’ which is a simple hand-washing station made from sticks, string and a plastic container, to make an affordable solution for hand-washing at home.
Studies have indicated that over 60% of households in the Kumi District do not have any provision for washing hands so we believe this education is vital to keep the entire family healthy and well. Particularly as diarrhoea disease is still one of the biggest killers in the developing world for children under 5.
Hand-washing Stations for Schools
It is believed that more than 40 percent of diarrhoea cases in schoolchildren result from transmission in schools, therefore it’s so important that schools provide somewhere for the children to wash their hands.
Currently, out of the 120 schools in the Kumi district of Uganda, only those we’ve received funding to support have a permanent hand-washing station in place.
Schools in Kumi do not have plumbed, running water, and are barely funded to replace their pit latrines (holes dug in the ground) when these become full. Which makes it really hard for them to provide something as necessary and simple as a facility for the children to wash their hands.
Our stations are large tanks with taps, on a concrete base with channels for drainage. This allows for several children to use it at once and the tanks are easily filled from water gathered at nearby bore wells.
