Keep 300 schools in rural Kenya safe from COVID-19

Thank you so much for donating to this project making sure that children have a clean, safe, healthy environment at school with access to clean water, latrines and health education. This programme involves the children directly as they form health clubs to review their school environment, identify risks and create an action plan to address them. 

Activities over the last few months have included the children, who are members of the health clubs in each school, training for their role. They have been learning now to carry out an environmental review of their school, planning and carrying out action days that address these areas and informing and involving the rest of the children in the school, for example – rotas to clean the classrooms, keeping the tippy tappys filled with water for handwashing and getting involved in the actions days.

For World Environment Day several schools planted trees to improve their school environment and help to combat climate change in the future.  The children enjoyed the trainings and learning more about Healthy School programme, good health, hygiene and sanitation.  Each member of the health club receive a t-shirt to identify them as members.  There was great excitement when these were distributed after each training.

To mark Global Menstrual Hygiene Day in May, 500 children from 13 schools gathered at Londiani Township school for workshops and games, learning about menstrual health, discussing issues, seeing the reusable sanitary kits and how to use them.  To show their commitment to #EndPeriodStigma, they made menstrual bracelets, the global symbol for menstruation.  Celebrating the day provided the students with information, showing them that menstruation is a normal part of life and can no longer be ‘womens’ business but ‘community business’.  The students enjoyed the games, mixing between schools and entertaining each other with poems, songs, stories and speeches.

Construction of pit latrine blocks for girls and boys and rain water harvesting projects continues in the schools and earlier this month, visitors from Ireland and the UK spent time a Kiptugumo Primary school where a new latrine block with washroom for girls is under construction.  The visitors enquired about the impact of COVID-19 on the school. 

The School Principal, Mr Kiptoo, told them that the number of girls attending the school has fallen sharply since the pandemic – schools were closed for 9 months during Kenya’s lockdown and many children simply never returned. Mr Kiptoo said that boy pupils now outnumber girl pupils by two to one. Large numbers of teenage girls, including primary school pupils aged 13 and 14, became pregnant during the lockdown. Many of these girls have never returned to school, while others who are trying to resume their studies are understandably distracted by the needs of their babies, and their academic performance is faltering. Meanwhile, many of the boys are under pressure from parents to abandon school and earn money.  

Thank you so much for supporting this project.  As promised, here is an update on recent activities from staff member, Caroline Chelangat, schools education co-ordinator with Brighter Communities Worldwide.

We are supporting 342 schools across Kericho county to ensure they are safe and healthy places for children to learn.  Schools re-opened on January 23rd and we are working through Term 1 which will finish on April 21st with a 3 day half term break at the end of March.

Improvement of school hygiene, sanitation, water and cooking infrastructure is key to the success of the Healthy Schools Programme.  We currently have 3 construction projects building latrines (toilets) underway –

1. Kiptugumo Primary schools – Girls toilet block to benefit 148 girls
2. Kasheen Secondary School – Boys toilet block to benefit 100 boys
3. Lelu Secondary School – Boys toilet block to benefit 490 boys to benefit

Each latrine block is constructed over a 20 feet deep pit and lined with concrete.  The pit is dug by hand.  Boys have 8 individual cubicles and girl’s latrines have 12. All latrines have doors.  Girl’s latrine buildings also have 2 washrooms incorporated into the design to support girls during menstruation thus ensuring girls can stay at school. One section of the washrooms is designed for persons with disability.

Latrine blocks include ventilation pipes and a system of guttering to harvest rain water collected in a tank next to the block and this provides the children with water for handwashing.  During the dry season, tanks are filled by the children bringing water from rivers.  Right now we are experiencing drought conditions and the dry spell has affected the water supply in schools.  Rain water stored has been exhausted, many local rivers are dry and schools have no other way of getting water to the school unless they can afford to pay for water.  This has to be delivered by truck and not all schools are accessible by road.  It is a huge challenge until the rain comes.

All the infrastructure projects are implemented using cost sharing of up to 50% with the school management, Constituency Development Fund (CDF) and parents.  Last year the CDF fund was scrapped but fortunately it has been reinstated this year.  We hope this will help the schools fund their part of the cost sharing.  Parents will often provide labour and skills to help fund their portion in kind.

More water tanks are to be constructed during the year.