Results from school sanitation programmes in Kenya

Updated - Thursday 07 April 2005

Girls are staying on longer in school in Kisumu District in Western Kenya, after a sustained set of activities around hygiene and sanitation. The schools have become more 'girl-friendly'. Fewer girls drop out of education once they reach puberty and boys are more willing to help to keep the school toilets clean and do other jobs they would not do at home.

The schools - working with two NGOs - have created a culture in which boys in School Health Clubs share the duties of cleaning latrines, sweeping classrooms and compounds and providing water to the latrines. Although the boys still do not do undertake these tasks at home they now see them as part of their school duties.

This is the combined experience of two NGOs, Africa Now (AN) and Sustainable Aid in Africa International (SANA).

The Schools after the Interventions

The two NGOs watched what was happening in seven schools near Kisumu where SANA had been working, and talked to teachers and students.

Girls said they were managing menstruation more easily and were more committed to remaining in school because new school latrines had been built.

Teachers and pupils observed that water-related sickness had reduced significantly and this was born out by statistics at another seven school project, where water-borne illness dropped from an average of five to two per week.

Girls were keener on school health clubs than boys, and more likely to take part in songs and skits promoting health messages.

Girls were brought up to take more responsibility than boys for the well-being of their families, and they are more influential as agents of change in their homes.

However, at school, boys in the health club wash latrines, clean the compound, fill leaky tins and relay health messages. For boys these actions seem to end once they leave the school. The boys said that their sisters and mothers would, for example, usually fetch water. The girls and women in the household were also responsible for cleaning latrines and boiling water.

When asked why they would do these jobs at school but not at home, boys said that their mothers would not permit it. It was clear that the school environment was felt to be very different. At school they were socialised to perform similar activities to girls and felt a need to prove themselves equal to the task of being responsible. A few, however, reported a change of hygiene habits at home, such as boiling water, as a direct result of the training on school sanitation and hygiene education (SSHE).

SANA obtained funding from the French Government to assist schools in two peri-urban areas close to Kisumu with SSHE. Wandiege Primary School was selected from one area and Nawa Primary School from the other. SANA, in planning SSHE, drew on their experiences of a seven school Water and Sanitation project, funded by the development foundation SIMAVI in a neighbouring area.

Key activities

The SANA project had four key activities:

1. improving the water supply by rehabilitating wells and boreholes, to benefit the whole village community, and building pit latrines (water is sold to other users to facilitate financial sustainability);

2. safe disposal of waste, promoting appropriate latrine technology in both schools and in the community;

3. community training and empowerment to ensure a sense of ownership and the ability to operate and maintain the facilities;

4. School Health Clubs in the Primary Schools with training focused on hygiene behaviour and awareness-raising on endemic diseases such as malaria, and HIV/AIDS.

Africa Now (AN), the only other NGO carrying out SSHE training in Kisumu, has been supporting 27 schools. SANA drew valuable lessons from AN's experiences and worked closely with them. AN's SSHE training ran from 2001 to 2002, with funding from the British Council and Water For People. This focused mainly on awareness raising about health and hygiene, as there were not sufficient funds to provide new water supplies. Later, ten schools applied to AN and World Vision, who constructed water tanks for rain harvesting.