Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Programs

July 2011 Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Programs Saving lives through safe water, sanitation, and hygiene A SPECIAL REPORT

Table of contents 1 Introduction 1 WASH goals and objectives 2 Program accomplishments Ethiopia Niger Zambia 7 With deep gratitude

WASH Facts More than 880 million people worldwide lack access to safe drinking water. WHO & UNICEF, 2010 Globally, 2.6 billion people lack basic sanitation. WHO & UNICEF, 2010 Child mortality rates can be reduced 55 percent by providing access to safe water and basic sanitation facilities potentially impacting 4.5 million children annually. Esrey, et al., 1993 Introduction Thank you for your support of World Vision s water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programs in Africa. Millions of people die each year from diseases spread by contaminated water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene. Gifts from partners like you are helping World Vision to decrease illness and improve health by providing potable water and adequate sanitation to families in impoverished areas. WASH programs are helping to lessen the burden on women and children by reducing the distance to water collection points. In addition, sufficient water supply increases harvest yield and thus the ability of parents to adequately provide for their children with better nutrition and income from the sale of crops. WASH interventions help communities obtain adequate supplies of safe water by drilling new borehole wells, repairing existing wells, developing spring and rainwater catchments, training community members in safe water storage, and building filtration systems. Sanitation interventions involve constructing household latrines, refuse dumps, and surface water drainage systems. These initiatives become sustainable as community members are trained to repair and maintain pumps and water sources, and serve on water and sanitation committees that oversee community improvements. World Vision also initiates hygiene education for children and adults, including proper hand and facewashing to prevent disease. Over the last 25 years, World Vision has provided approximately 11 million people with access to clean water. Our WASH interventions are playing a vital part in helping to reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goal to, halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. This report highlights recent achievements through World Vision WASH programs in Ethiopia, Niger, and, Zambia. WASH goals and objectives The overall goal of World Vision s WASH projects is to improve the health and socioeconomic well-being of communities by reducing the incidence of waterand sanitation-related diseases. Projects achieve this goal through four objectives: Increase access to sustainable, safe water and environmental sanitation for poor and vulnerable communities Reduce the prevalence of WASH-related diseases, including trachoma, Guinea worm, and diarrheal diseases, through the promotion of personal hygiene and environmental practices Increase sustainability by promoting integrated water resource management at the local level, with a focus on maintaining the quantity and quality of drinking water 1

Foster a new model of partnership and institutional synergy to ensure technical excellence, programmatic innovation, and long-term financial, social, and environmental sustainability in water management that can be replicated elsewhere Communities that are most vulnerable and have the least access to water and sanitation are chosen to receive WASH interventions. World Vision also works with community leaders to ensure that residents are committed to helping to construct and maintain WASH facilities. 2011 World Vision Community members in Adilo town, Ethiopia, draw water from the new water point faucets constructed through the Ethiopia WASH Program. Accessing potable water in Adilo use to take a full day. Families drew water from a well with extremely low yield. Women and children waited in line all day to obtain the rationed amount of water one jerrycan. Time spent gathering water contributed to children particularly girls being less involved in school. World Vision responded by drilling a deep well, constructing a 100-cubicmeter reservoir, installing 4.5 miles of pipeline, and building six water points with six faucets each, serving approximately 6,685 people. Program accomplishments Ethiopia The Ethiopia WASH Program is benefitting children and families across seven World Vision community development areas. Between July 2010 and December 2010, World Vision drilled 47 wells; laid 20 miles of pipeline; and constructed four reservoirs, eight water points, and three generator houses. The following section summarizes specific accomplishments through the Ethiopia WASH Program. Increase access to sustainable, safe water and environmental sanitation for poor and vulnerable communities and schoolchildren Constructed a 100-cubic-meter reinforced concrete masonry reservoir in the community development area of Adilo Procured and installed two submersible pumps, power supplies, generators, and transformers for water projects in Durame and Adilo. Equipped two shallow wells with hand pumps Drilled six deep boreholes and 12 shallow ones in Kemisse Extracted water samples from three deep boreholes and analyzed the samples to ensure their quality meets the World Health Organization standard To bring water to the community of Mekoy, constructed nine miles of pipeline; built a 50-cubic-meter reservoir, a power house, and three water points; and installed a transformer for power supply Ensured access to water for the community of Chekechek by laying one mile of pipeline, constructing a 50-cubic-meter reservoir and a generator house, purchasing a generator, and installing four water points Laid 1.55 miles of pipe, constructed a 50-cubic-meter reservoir and a pump house, installed a generator, and created four water points as a part of the Agamsamba water project 2

Constructed two gender-specific ventilated improved pit latrines for the school and health institution in the community development area of Boset Constructed one ventilated improved pit latrine and one communal latrine in Kemisse Reduce the prevalence of waterborne and water-related diseases through the promotion of personal hygiene and good environmental practices among communities and schoolchildren Facts about Community- Led Total Sanitation It involves everyone in the community. It stresses total elimination of open defecation using hygienic, locally constructed toilets. Collective community decision, collective local action, and local diversity and innovations are key elements. Interventions are decided locally and don t depend on external subsidies, prescriptions, or pressures. Natural leaders emerge from collective local actions to lead future collective initiatives. It ignites a change in sanitation and hygiene behavior rather than through simply constructing toilets. People decide together how they can create a clean hygienic environment. The community takes responsibility for its own actions. It advocates washing hands with soap or a substitute. To address this objective, the program conducted Community-Led Total Sanitation training in all of its operational community development areas. Training participants included community leaders, sub-district managers, school sanitation club representatives, health workers, leaders of faith- and community-based organizations, school administrators, World Vision staff, and district water experts. The Community-Led Total Sanitation approach provides a one-day theoretical training, field work, and triggering of communities. The triggering is expected to result in a change in the open-defecation trend and in each household constructing its own latrine. The hygiene promotion training encourages the habit of handwashing after latrine use. Eighty-one school sanitation club members were trained on health, hygiene, and sanitation in the Kemisse community development area. Ensure the ecologically, financially, and socially sustainable management of water quantity and quality Water samples were taken from 10 water sources and analyzed for water quantity and quality. The results showed that all the samples except one met World Health Organization guidelines for safe drinking water. World Vision trained 55 WASH committee members in Boset on water management and creating community awareness regarding household water treatment, using water supply systems, and water use efficiency. New and refresher training was provided to 51 men and 16 women in Kemisse community development area to help WASH committees efficiently manage water supply systems. Participants also received operation and maintenance tools to assist the committees in their work. Foster an effective partnership framework for sustainable water and sanitation development to improve community living conditions World Vision hosted a three-day Africa WASH Review and Capacity Building workshop in Hawassa during November 2010. The objectives of this workshop were to share WASH implementation experiences across regions and countries, learn new ways of improving WASH projects to maximize benefits, and to encourage the World Vision WASH projects to develop strategic alliances for synergy. 3

The workshop was officially opened by the guest of honor, State Minister for the Ministry of Water and Energy. During the workshop, participants visited various WASH intervention areas in Ethiopia. Country presentations were made by participants from the three regions (West, Southern, and East Africa). In addition, diverse papers related to the WASH program were presented, and valuable discussions were held, contributing to the workshop s overall success. World Vision WASH experts from Ethiopia also attended workshops and meetings on water resources and environmental management, urban sanitation planning, strategic planning, climate change, and water and food security. 2011 World Vision Students in Adilo town, Ethiopia, wash their hands after latrine use, as they have learned in school clubs. Niger The Niger WASH Program builds upon a seven-year history of successful water interventions in this country. World Vision has been working since March 2004 to increase safe water access for impoverished, rural populations in Niger through its West Africa Water Initiative. Through September 2010, 285 successful wells had been drilled, nearly 4,000 latrines built, 313 WASH committees established or reactivated, and 510 volunteers trained to construct latrines. From October 2010 through March 2011, 680 mothers learned about the importance of personal and home hygiene, and 463 households were trained on prevention of waterborne and water-related diseases. During the second quarter (January through March 2010), 34 communities in 14 community development areas prepared for drilling, and participated in sanitation and hygiene promotion. The following activities were accomplished during this reporting period. Increase access to sustainable, safe water Identified 67 potential sites for drilling Drilled 32 wells that successfully produced water Sampled water from 27 wells and sent samples to the lab for analysis Reduce the prevalence of waterborne, water-related, and hygienerelated diseases through the promotion of personal hygiene and environmental sanitation practices Constructed 218 household latrines Built 12 four-unit latrines and 55 hand-washing stations at schools and health centers Ensure ecologically and financially sustainable management of water quantity and quality Established and trained 35 WASH committees Taught 39 volunteers to maintain well pumps Trained 28 artisans to build latrines 4

2011 World Vision WATER, Malam Mahamadou lives in the village of Koussotori, Niger. His family is healthier and happier since World Vision helped him build a sanitary latrine. A story of success Many rural areas in Niger lack not only safe water, but also basic sanitation facilities. Open defecation breeds disease by attracting flies that carry germs to humans. A lack of sanitation also is a hardship because many residents have to travel long distances to use a latrine or toilet. Malam Mahamadou lives in the rural village of Koussotori. He supports his wife and five children by farming. When World Vision began water, sanitation, and hygiene activities in Koussotori, Malam received help building a latrine for his family. World Vision provided materials such as concrete and iron, as well as education on sanitation and hygiene. Malam was skeptical at first about the importance of building a latrine. We were reluctant to the idea of having such a thing in our home, but through the tireless efforts of the WASH community members of my village, and World Vision s staff, today we have come to realize that it is important to have a latrine at home, Malam said. Malam reports that incidences of illness linked to poor hygiene and sanitation have been significantly reduced.... Since we began using the toilet, many health problems that we encountered daily before started vanishing, and we spent less on medicine. I am appealing to all family men of my village to construct his own toilet in order to hinder flies from contaminating our foods with diseases contained in human feces... I wish that World Vision continues subsidizing toilets so that each household can benefit as we did, Malam added. Zambia During the first half of fiscal year 2011 (October 2010 through March 2011), the Zambia WASH Program drilled 61 successful boreholes and rehabilitated 31 wells, providing easy access to sustainable, safe water to more than 27,000 people. To ensure improved hygiene practices in communities and schools, 59 people were trained to promote sanitation and hygiene resources and 366 individuals were trained to promote hygiene in the communities. These people have helped the project reach out to 8,727 people with hygiene education. Specific achievements accomplished through the first half of the current fiscal year follow. 5

2008 World Vision WATER, Five-year-old Dauti washes his hands at a well constructed by World Vision in his village in Zambia. Through the Zambia WASH Program, wells drilled or rehabilitated in the first six months of fiscal year 2011 are serving about 27,000 people in total. Increase access to sustainable and safe water supply for poor and vulnerable communities and schoolchildren The project worked in collaboration with district and community stakeholders to identify 110 sites where boreholes will be drilled in the third quarter (April through June 2011). The 61 boreholes were drilled in four community development areas. The 31 rehabilitated boreholes are providing safe, clean water to 25 villages and six schools. Water samples from 48 drilled and rehabilitated wells were extracted and analyzed to ensure good water quality. Thirty-five were found to be safe for drinking. All water points contaminated with coliforms were disinfected. Iron removal plants were recommended for water points with high iron content. In addition, 47 wells drilled by other water agencies were tested for water quality analysis. Work began on five mechanized borehole systems that will be powered by solar pumps. A feasibility study for the construction of the Nsokolo Dam was conducted. The topographic survey was completed, and the dam is being designed. Improve access to environmental sanitation for poor and vulnerable communities and schoolchildren Constructed 18 ventilated improved pit latrines in schools, of which 12 were completed and six were still under construction Dug pits for 12 ventilated improved pit latrines at two schools Completed two demonstration latrines Molded 484 sanitation platforms for household latrines Reduce prevalence of waterborne and water-related diseases To achieve full hygiene and sanitation coverage in the targeted community development areas, the program trained 366 people to promote hygiene in communities. The program also trained 59 teachers and health personnel to teach schools and communities about sanitation and hygiene. Some 40 WASH clubs were formed and strengthened in 40 schools. To enable good hygiene practices, 60 hand-washing facilities were installed in 11 schools. More than 10,000 people were educated on how good sanitation and hygiene practices can prevent waterborne diseases. 6

Improve household and community capacity to own and manage water and sanitation infrastructure Trained 99 area pump technicians to ensure sustained operation and maintenance of the boreholes Trained 68 water-point caretakers to assist in preventive maintenance and educate neighboring communities in managing water facilities and practicing good sanitation and hygiene at water points Formed or reactivated 113 village WASH committees and trained members on the maintenance and management of water facilities in their communities Procured and distributed 32 tool kits to government institutions such as schools and health centers With deep gratitude Your generosity is helping families in Africa access clean water, basic sanitation, good hygiene education, as well as improved nutrition and income. As a result, incidences of WASH-related diseases are decreasing. Thank you for helping us show God s unconditional love to children and families in Africa. Community members appreciate the help they have received and are working to sustain the developments that have been achieved. To learn more about these programs and the impact of your support for water, sanitation, and hygiene projects, please contact your World Vision representative. Communities in Zambia have taken ownership of the WASH facilities constructed in their communities because they are involved in the process from the beginning. Pictured above are the village chief (in the middle), the area pump technician (working the hand pump), and a community member who is working to fence the borehole site in Muloongo village in the Hamaundu community development area. 2011 World Vision P.O. Box 9716 Federal Way, WA 98063-9716 worldvision.org INT11WASREP_mid_07.21.11 2011 World Vision, Inc. World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. Motivated by our faith in Jesus Christ, we serve alongside the poor and oppressed as a demonstration of God s unconditional love for all people. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. 7