Project Status



Project Type:  Rainwater Catchment

Regional Program: Western Kenya WaSH Program

Impact: 500 Served

Project Phase:  In Service - Apr 2018

Functionality Status:  Functional

Last Checkup: 01/09/2024

Project Features


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Community Profile

Munyanda Primary School opened in 1984. It is located in Kakamega County, Kenya. The total enrollment is 604 students, taught by 12 teachers. The school also employs three support staff. (Editor's Note: While this many people may have access on any given day, realistically a single water source can only support a population of 350-500 people. To learn more, click here.)

A normal day at Munyanda Primary School begins at 6 in the morning when pupils arrive to do their assigned cleaning chores. Normal lessons begin at 8am and go until 4:30pm when students return home to help their parents with other chores.

Most of the people living around the school are  farmers who grows crops like maize, beans, and  potatoes. While their children are away at school, women continue with domestic chores at home while men go to find casual jobs within the community.

Water

The school is connected to a tap system that's run by the government. However, this tap is rationed, metered, and often turned off entirely during the dry season. When the tap isn't working, students are required to bring a container of water with them to school.

There has been no visible improvement in health from the tap's water purely because it is never functional long enough. The water brought by each student is either gathered at home or along the way. It's quality is highly questionable, for the school reports a high level of waterborne diseases like typhoid. They claim the resulting absences are the main reason why academic performance is so low here. "Performance of this school is attributed to various factors; the most being water and health. Inadequate and unsafe water supply has made most students to contract water-related diseases, thus ending up missing several lessons. This has lowered the school mean grade, thus poor performance. We seriously need to partner and address this vise," said Headteacher Aggrey Imbwaga.

Sanitation

The latrines are not in good condition, nor are there any hand-washing stations. Right now, there is one latrine for every 50 students!

Here's what we're going to do about it:

Training

Training will be held for two days. The facilitator will use PHAST (participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation), ABCD (asset-based community development), CTC (child to child), lectures, group discussions, and handouts to teach health topics and ways to promote good practices within the school. The CTC method will prepare students to lead other students into healthy habits, as well as kickstart a CTC club for the school.

Hand-Washing Stations

This CTC club will oversee the new facilities, such as hand-washing stations, and make sure they are kept clean and in working condition. The two hand-washing stations will be delivered to the school, and the club will fill them with water on a daily basis and make sure there is always a cleaning agent such as soap or ash.

VIP Latrines

Two triple-door latrines will be constructed with local materials that the school will help gather. Three doors will serve the girls while the other three serve the boys. And with a new source of water on school grounds, students and staff should have enough to keep these new latrines clean.

Rainwater Catchment Tank

A 50,000-liter rainwater catchment tank will help alleviate the water crisis at this school. The school will also help gather the needed materials such as sand, rocks, and water from the spring for mixing cement. Once finished, this tank can begin catching rainfall that will be used by the school’s students and staff. Students and staff will no longer be put in an extremely difficult position when the they turn the tap and no water comes out.

We and the school strongly believe that with this assistance, standards will significantly improve. These higher standards will translate to better academic performance!


This project is a part of our shared program with Western Water And Sanitation Forum (WEWASAFO). Our team is pleased to provide the reports for this project (formatted and edited for readability) thanks to the hard work of our friends in Kenya.

Project Updates


July, 2019: Giving Update: Munyanda Primary School

A year ago, your generous donation enabled us to build a rainwater catchment tank for Munyanda Primary School in Kenya. The contributions of incredible monthly donors and others giving directly to The Water Promise allow our local teams to visit project sites throughout the year, strengthening relationships with communities and evaluating the water project over time. These consistent visits allow us to learn vital lessons and hear amazing stories. Read more…




April, 2018: Munyanda Primary School Project Complete

Munyanda Primary School in Kenya now has a new source of safe, clean water thanks to your generous donation. A new rainwater catchment system was been built, and there are now six new latrines in use. Two hand-washing stations were installed, and students received training in sanitation and hygiene.

New Knowledge

We organized for hygiene and sanitation training through the headteacher, whom we informed during one of our supervisory visits. We shared with him the importance of training for students, teachers, and parents. He agreed to select pupils from classes five to seven and also invited representatives from the board of management. In total, 27 of us ended up meeting in one of the school's available classrooms.

We taught that hygiene entails personal hygiene, water and food hygiene, and environmental hygiene. Attention needs to be given to each facet of hygiene to enjoy a healthy life.

We covered topics including but not limited to:

– Water pollution and water treatment

– Health starts with a clean self and clean environment

– Group dynamics, leadership, and governance

– Forming an effective CTC (child to child) club

– Hand-washing

Demonstrations were used for hand-washing, tooth-brushing, solar disinfection, and many other topics. We facilitated group discussions and presentations, and students took part in role-plays. The students also received handouts to help them teach hygiene and sanitation to their peers.

The CTC club includes both students and teachers who want to take responsibility for spreading the message of good health and hygiene among their peers. They are also responsible for managing hand-washing stations, cleaning latrines, and keeping the school environment tidy. A water user committee was formed by parents and school administration, which is responsible for overseeing and maintaining the new facilities.

"We are very grateful to this organization for training pupils from Munyanda Primary School on how to maintain overall hygiene for good health. More so, brushing our teeth. Most say their teeth were rotting, but after training they are glad that they will no longer suffer from dental diseases," 11-year-old Vivian Busolo said.

VIP Latrines

This project funded the installation of six new ventilated improved pit (VIP) latrines. All of these latrines are easy to use and clean. And with a rainwater catchment tank, there should be enough water to keep them clean all the time.

Hand-Washing Stations

The two hand-washing stations were delivered to school and handed over to the CTC club. These were placed outside of the boys’ and girls’ latrines to encourage hand-washing after latrine use. CTC club members teach other students how to properly wash their hands at the stations, and make sure there is always soap or ash available. Now the school has the stations they need, and they have the water to fill them.

Rainwater Catchment Tank

Construction for this 50,000-liter rainwater catchment tank was successful!

Parents, staff, and students helped our artisans gather everything needed for construction. All the while, women cooked meals for the artisans, and the school provided accommodations for the artisans during their work. Local men and women helped our artisans with their manual labor, too.

Students helping the artisans and volunteers by carrying bricks to the construction site.

The construction process officially began with our staff and school administration looking around the school compound to try and determine the best location for a new rainwater catchment tank. This needed to be the best site with good, clean roofing to catch the rainwater.

Rainwater tank construction began with clearance of the site: excavating the soil within the required measurements to make level ground for the tank foundation. The foundation was cast by laying hardcore on a level ground and then reinforcing it using steel, concrete and waterproof cement.

Both the drawing pipe as well as the washout pipe were affixed as the foundation was lain. The wall was built with ferro-cement techniques through six layers. The inner wall was plastered while rough casting was done on the outer part. Finally, the catchment area was dug, plastered, and a staircase installed.

Beginning to work on the gutter system

The dome construction followed after the superstructure had been given enough time to settle. The manhole cover was fitted, inlet pipes were connected to the roof gutters, inlet screens, ventilation pipes (breathers) and overflow pipes were all done to standards.

Once finished, the tank was given three to four weeks to undergo complete curing before it was cleaned and taken over by Munyanda Primary School.

"We are very happy with the new facilities that have been constructed in our school. Our kids will no longer have to travel close to one kilometer to get drinking water. They will now spend that previously wasted time to study, and will be less tired, especially during their afternoon classes," teacher Angeline Anguzuzu said.

She and her students gathered around to celebrate as we handed the facilities over for them to use. Smiles were all around as we witnessed clean water coming from the tap!




January, 2018: Munyanda Primary School Project Underway

Munyanda Primary School will soon have a source of water on school grounds thanks to your donation. A rainwater catchment tank and new latrines are being constructed, hand-washing stations provided, and the school is being trained on proper sanitation and hygiene practices. Imagine the impact this will have on these students! For now, check out the report with narrative, pictures, and maps to learn more about this project. Thank you for noticing the need here, and we’ll keep you posted as the work continues.




Project Photos


Project Type

For a rainwater collection system, we build gutters around a building with good, clean roofing to channel rain where we want it. From there, the water falls through a filtered inlet pipe into a high-capacity storage tank, the size of which is based on population and average rainfall patterns. In the tank, water can be stored for months, where it is easily treated and accessed. Learn more here!


Giving Update: Munyanda Primary School

July, 2019

A year ago, you funded a rainwater tank at Munyanda Primary School in Kenya – creating a life-changing moment for Keilla Lopez. Thank you!

Keeping The Water Promise

There's an incredible community of monthly donors who have come alongside you in supporting clean water in Munyanda Primary School.

This giving community supports ongoing sustainability programs that help Munyanda Primary School maintain access to safe, reliable water. Together, they keep The Water Promise.

We’re confident you'll love joining this world-changing group committed to sustainability!

Now a year since the water and sanitation projects were installed at Munyanda Primary School, during one of our recent field visits we saw many great changes there. Before the rain tank, pupils had to bring water from home when there was no water on hand and it was very hard for the teachers to determine whether the water was clean or not. Today, Munyanda tells a different story. The compound is very smart and neat, and both teachers and students are seen washing their hands after visiting the toilets.

Sanitation Teacher Carolyne Avungana shared with us the many positive changes she has seen these projects drive over the last year at her school.

"With the water tank in the school, the water bills of buying water have gone down...we only pay during dry seasons," she said.

"The school population has also increased...and we believe more [pupils] are yet to come because our school has a new face. The performance of this school also went up...This is because pupils are always in class [now] as compared to the past when they were taken out of the class to go and collect water which wasted a lot of their precious time," Carolyne said.

One of those students, 13-year-old Keilla Lopez, has personally felt the change in the routine now that school time remains focused on just that: school.

"Before [your team] came to our school, we wasted a lot of time going home for lunch [because] the water that was brought to school was used to prepare teachers' meals and cleaning classrooms," remembered Keilla.

"Now with the tank in the school compound, our food is prepared in time, thus we have time for [studying]."

Standing strong one year later


Navigating through intense dry spells, performing preventative maintenance, conducting quality repairs when needed and continuing to assist community leaders to manage water points are all normal parts of keeping projects sustainable. The Water Promise community supports ongoing sustainability programs that help Munyanda Primary School maintain access to safe, reliable water.

We’d love for you to join this world-changing group committed to sustainability.

The most impactful way to continue your support of Munyanda Primary School – and hundreds of other places just like this – is by joining our community of monthly givers.

Your monthly giving will help provide clean water, every month... keeping The Water Promise.


Contributors

Project Sponsor - Imago Dei Community