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The Impact of WaSH

Water4’s partner in Kenya, Freedom Water Solutions (FWS), is committed to positively impacting communities through water access, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) training. FWS recently provided 16 villages in the Shamu District with WaSH training, changing the health outcomes of 3,840 people.

Before engaging the community with WaSH training, FWS did a survey. They found the community didn’t have access to safe water and therefore used water from unsafe sources, which are very highly contaminated. FWS also found a majority of the households didn’t have latrines, meaning open defecation was highly practiced in this area. This further increased the chance of disease transmission.  FWS also reviewed personal hygiene, looking at common practices, such as sharing utensils across the compound, unsanitary areas attracting flies and other disease-carrying insects, and how community members collected, stored, and used water.

After surveying the Shamu District, FWS decided to engage this area to bring change by taking WaSH training to the villagers. Our strategy was to conduct a three-day WaSH training in each of the 16 villages, following up after two months to evaluate behavior change. 

Two months later, we returned to evaluate how the villagers had followed up with the action steps we provided and how the rate of waterborne disease had decreased.

The results proved the ways that WaSH training truly transforms lives when paired with the addition of 10 community boreholes providing safe water to them.

  • 85% of households have been able to place latrines within their compound, reducing open defecation practices within the area.
  • 99% are using safe water and understand and practice treating water for the purpose of drinking safe water.
  • 80% personal hygiene is being practiced, use of tip taps, hand washing facility with soap, utensil drying ranks, and water storages shows high level of improvement.
  • 95% of WaSH related diseases, as well as water-borne diseases cases, are reducing rapidly.

Anecdotally, villagers reached out to me to express their gratitude for teaching them the steps to hand washing and the importance of having hand washing facilities at every home. This allowed them to easily follow health guidelines when the COVID-19  pandemic arrived in their villages because they were already familiar with it.

We are so thankful for Water4! For their passion for touching and transforming the lives of people in Africa and all over the world. Every single coin donated to Water4 changes lives.

Rose Muketha

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