Project
Goibei Primary School
Project Complete!
Goibei Primary School began in 1938 with a small student population and has been growing gradually to this year’s enrollment of 432. School starts at 6:30 am every morning.
Their property is full of murram, a hard clay-like material mixed with stones. When students fall during recess, they often get scratched up due to the murram. This murram attracted the county government and some of the leaders came and requested that they are allowed to harvest it to construct better roads in the area. They said that in return, they would help get clean water to Goibei Primary School. The school easily accepted this offer. As time went by, they never received a shilling nor plans for a water project.
Those harvesting the murram also demolished eight classrooms which they agreed to reconstruct when they were done. However, they only built three classes and left the school with no playing field for recess. The school had lost hope of accessing clean and safe water.
The school board did their best to raise funds for plastic rainwater tanks. They got three, each of which is able to hold 3,500 liters to 5,000 liters. However, two of the three were placed in direct sunlight and warped to the point that they are leaking and unusable. Now there are just 3,500 liters which aren’t nearly enough for 432 students to drink.
This forces students to look for enough water elsewhere. They leave school and walk to a station in the community that has tap water. Students walk along a dirt road until they reach their destination, making it a dangerous journey as they avoid oncoming motorbikes and other vehicles.
The search for water takes up a lot of valuable class time and tires the students out. Water scarcity at the school has also forced them to ration water and to sacrifice cleanliness.
The search for water takes up a lot of valuable class time and tires the students out. Water scarcity at the school has also forced them to ration water and to sacrifice cleanliness.
The scarcity of safe water in school has been a contributing factor to poor performance amongst the pupils. Many parents have removed their children from the school, taking them to other schools where there is more water available.
“The lack of sufficient clean and safe water in this school has been like a thorn in the flesh. We have suffered for decades; the health of pupils has for a while been poor, making them to always be out of class receiving medication. Most times we have failed to hosts extracurricular activities just because we do not have water in the school compound,” said Teacher Odede.
What we can do:
Training
“Call a spade a spade and not a big spoon! Our school in terms of upholding proper hygiene and sanitation status. We are very poor and this has always posed a threat to the health of our pupils,” said Teacher Serem.
Training on good hygiene habits 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.
Handwashing Stations
Two handwashing stations will be delivered to the school, and the CTC 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.
We and the school strongly believe that with this assistance, standards will significantly improve. These higher standards will translate to better academic performance!
Training
“Call a spade a spade and not a big spoon! Our school in terms of upholding proper hygiene and sanitation status. We are very poor and this has always posed a threat to the health of our pupils,” said Teacher Serem.
Training on good hygiene habits 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.
Handwashing Stations
Two handwashing stations will be delivered to the school, and the CTC 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.
We and the school strongly believe that with this assistance, standards will significantly improve. These higher standards will translate to better academic performance!
0.052236 latitude, 34.837937 longitude
H2O for Life is not a WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) project implementer. We have partnerships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) implementing WASH in Schools projects around the world. Our NGO partners match funds needed for each school project. We also have a generous donor that provides us with an interest-free loan that, along with matching funds, allows for many projects to be started or possibly even completed before total funds have been raised. In rare situations we reserve the right to reallocate funds to alternate project(s).
Questions? Ask us at 651-756-7577 or info@h2oforlifeschools.org.
September 30, 2020
Goibei Project Complete!
Goibei Primary School in Kenya now has access to a new source of safe, clean water thanks to the completion of their rain catchment tank, which has the ability to...
