FRESH - Focusing Resources for Effective School Health

Who we are and our objective

GWAKO -Groundwater Abstraction in Kenya Outreach is a community based water and sanitation organization that strive to scale up the access to education through the provision of safe drinking water in poor rural schools. The purpose of starting this group was to address the issues of persistence cholera and diarrhea outbreak, as the area is notorious for floods hence water contamination. To that end the group decided to work with rural schools and village women to address water issues as a means of ending the cholera and diarrhea outbreaks. our mission is to alleviate the suffering of school pupils and families in the poorest communities through sustainable grassroots initiatives aimed at local empowerment, access to safe drinking water, sanitation services, and educational opportunities in an effort to fulfill basic human rights embracing a spirit of compassion and service to humanity.

Project Location

Nyanza province of the republic of Kenya.

Project overview

Lack of unsustainable access to water supply in rural Nyanza province, Kenya remains a big public health problem. The project will provide rural water supply and sanitation facilities to improve community health and education attainment among school pupils and villagers (indirect beneficiaries) and provide opportunities for income generation to about 39,800 school pupils and villagers. These will be achieved through drilling water wells, hygiene education and latrine constructions.

The proposed FRESH objectives for this project include:

• Increase the level of access to sustainable safe drinking water supplies, and increase sanitation facilities at schools;
• Decrease the prevalence of water and sanitation-related diseases through hygiene and sanitation promotion and education targeting school aged populations;
• Build capacity of community workers, teachers and schools to provide service and advocacy in FRESH program 

The FRESH Initiative for Schools project combines a full suite of water, sanitation and hygiene program elements for cumulative health improvements in school students and surrounding communities.  New boreholes will provide safe drinking water to 50 schools over the next three years of the program, with the per school impact of approximately 563 students + 25 teachers and leadership + 210 nearby community members for a total of 798 people per water supply (39,800 total persons served over three years).  The lack of proper latrine coverage in the area is one of the weakest components in the FRESH strategy.  Therefore, GWAKO propose construction of latrines at proper coverage levels for the proposed 50 schools. Throughout the project, latrines will be provided to approximately 5,300 students.


PROJECT DESCRIPTION AND COMPONENTS

Safe Drinking Water Initiative for Schools 

Safe drinking water will be provided for 50 schools by constructing of new boreholes with hand pumps on the school grounds.  GWAKO will select the schools for the project and mobilize school leaders and community members to create a sense of ownership prior to drilling at each school.  Upon completion of the water supply, GWAKO will do Operations and Maintenance (O&M) training, so the pump will be properly looked after.  GWAKO will deploy DTH drill rig in the areas with hard soil formation and where the soil is soft we shall use cost effective an LS-200 mud-rotary machine to drill boreholes up to 60 meters.  Geophysical surveys will be utilized to selected drilling locations and water quality testing will be conducted according to government regulations.  GWAKO’s familiarity with local communities will assist in the implementation of the drilling program along with the integration of hygiene and sanitation promotion at each school location. 

The main benefits of the Project will be

* improved health of the general population and reduced mortality;

* less resources (time and cash) spent by households to obtain water, especially by women and      young girls; and

* Improved conditions for women, and socially excluded castes and groups.

* improved school attendance due to better health and reduced water carrying burdens, especially for girls;

Monitoring and Reporting;The monitoring system will focus on water, sanitation and health indicators such as access to safe water, level of usage cleanliness among the PLWHA/Aids patients and reduction of time spent in obtaining water (level of women economic participation), Girl-child school retention / drop out and adoptions of hygiene behaviours including hand washing and use of latrines. The results of our past participatory baseline survey conducted in the target areas, when this program [50 FRESH INITIATIVE] was launched will be used to provide a measure of the program impact and identify key lessons learned.

Community based monitoring will be used to encourage communities to understand and value their role in the implementation and evaluation of local development efforts. Project level monitoring will provide quantitative data on the progress of the program on a regular basis and facilitate the preparation of quarterly reportsFinancial and technical reports. GWAKO in collaboration with the project community management committee will organized on a mid term stakeholder’s workshop to review project progress as well as share planned activities for ensuing six months. This arrangement enabled stakeholders to determine their level of involvement for the planning period as well as highlighting the resource implications in terms of finances as well as expected community contribution.

What Support we need; This is an going project that seeks to drill 50 water wells in 50 schools at a budget of US$194,500, over the months project period July 2010 - December 2011. GWAKO has far received funding support from other organizations such as George Fischer Jubille foundation in Zurich Switzerland, Diageo/EABL foundation.

We are posting this project to help raise US$ 79,711.05 that shall go towards drilling 20 water wells and hand washing promotions in 20 schools.

Project contacts details

Project Director - Benjamin Koyoo

Project Adress; Alpha house, Oginga Odinga street, P.O.BOX 19521 Mega City, Kisumu Kenya

Email address: gwakoministries@yahoo.com


Phone +254 57 202 0939; Mobile +254 721 826904