Water for Learning in Kenyan & Ugandan Schools

Many schools in East Africa do not have access to enough water for drinking, cooking and washing. This time last year, St Elizabeth Bumia secondary school in Kakamega, Kenya, was one such school. It relied on a borehole to provide water, but this dried up regularly, forcing students to miss class to undertake the time-intensive manual pumping of water. Making matters worse, the water they did get was often not clean, meaning that students regularly fell ill. What was the result? Even more class time skipped - all because of the lack of a clean source of water at the school.

Fortunately, two EPAfrica project workers, Bella and Hayden, volunteered with EPAfrica at St Elizabeth Bumia last summer. Together with the senior management of the school, they decided to do something about this situation. They invested money in the school, hiring local workers to deepen the borehole, install an electric pump and a new water tank. They hoped that this would ensure that the school always had access to enough water, and would also simplify the process of treating this water to make it safe to drink.

The project was completed in a few weeks, allowing Bella and Hayden to see the impact before they left Kenya. The project had enabled students and teachers at the school to focus their efforts on realising their potential and enjoying their education, rather then worrying about or dealing with potential problems with the water source. Beyond this direct positive impact, the head teacher of St Elizabeth Bumia was grateful for the fact that the school would now be able to share its improved water source with the local community, increasing goodwill and support for the school, and hopefully encouraging more students to attend.

This is just one example of the sort of impact that we can make through water projects in under-resourced rural secondary schools in East Africa. The good news is that this summer, thanks to your support, EPAfrica will have the funds to engage in water projects to improve the water situation in eight more schools, which will directly impact the health and education of at least 4,000 students!

Over the past few months, as donations have been received, we have been gearing up to the imminent arrival of project workers in East Africa later this month, so that once they are there, we are in the best position to effectively invest the money you have donated, and bring about the largest impact possible. Great progress has been made in recruiting almost 60 project workers, and selecting the schools they will be volunteering in in East Africa. These project workers have been trained on how to effectively collaborate with school leadership to identify areas of need, determine whether and how their school could benefit from an EPAfrica water project, and develop proposals for these. At the same time, EPAfrica has also been refining and improving the criteria we will use to chose the 8 projects that we will be able to invest in this summer, so that the money you have donated goes as far as possible. It has been a busy few months, and we are all really excited to see the water projects commencing soon, so that we can see the fruits of this labour!

All along, we have not forgotten that you, the donor, are making this happen! Thank you so much for giving so generously to EPAfrica’s project on GlobalGiving - none of this would be possible without your support. The project is now being deactivated on Global Giving because we have hit our fundraising target for water projects this year, but you can find updates on the progress that is made this summer by checking our blog at http://epafrica.org.uk/blog/.