In Kajiado County the thin line between life and death, or success and failure in schools has been identified – washing one’s hands. While this simple exercise may seem too basic, here, it is a serious matter that is attracting an army of actors determined to ensure that hands are clean, safe water is available for drinking and that sanitary facilities are accessible to all.
Thus, the perennial cholera outbreak in the county, incessant skin and intestinal
worms, has spurred the hygiene corps into action. This explains why in each primary school and most homesteads you will find a leaking tin. This is a plastic tin or can fashioned from waste bottles or jerrycans. It is suspended from a tree branch and filled with water. At the bottom a tiny hole is made using a nail for outlet. This tin is critical because it provides water for washing ones hands and sometimes face. The tiny hole moderates water flow to avoid wastage.
“Proper hygiene is the basis of a progressive society. You cannot claim civilization when you are still battling with basic hygienic issues that should have been eliminated ages ago,” James Malusha the District Public Health Officer says thoughtfully.
“The major problem here was lack of awareness on hygiene. The idea of washing hands was not considered critical and so people carried and swallowed bacteria as they eat,” Malusha explains.
True, the Kajiado District Commissioner, is worried that over 60 percent of the region is lacking in latrines, a scaring revelation.
“The situation was worse than it is now,” he says. “Normally issues of hygiene have been ignored as trivial either by error of omission or commission.” The DC says efforts are being stepped up to ensure that hygiene issues have been integrated in the daily lifestyles of communities.
And school children have learned this mantra with speed and precession. At Lengishon Primary School, about 30 kilometers from Kajiado Township, its lunch hour. We find pupils queuing for a leak-tin before they can partake on their meal.
“We were told hands carry germs which cause cholera and other diseases. If we want to be safe, it is important that we wash our hands before eating,” says Kaiyanga Sakau one of the pupils.
Though shy, he also knows that water should be treated before drinking and that food should be served on clean utensils. He told his mother as much. Sakau even went ahead to put up a leak- tin in his home. The tins are now a phenomena in the county. Of course this tin is a far cry from your warm sinks and self-flushing toilets in the city. nonetheless, the bottom line is to battle bacteria.
This concept is called Water Sanitation Hygiene (WASH). The approach is two-fold – School Wash and Community Wash. “In school wash we target safe drinking water to children, availability of sanitation facilities and hand-wash. we also encourage managements to embed sanitation matters in their planning and budgeting,” says Stephen Osingo an advisor at SNV – Netherlands Development Organization which has teamed up with a number of partners to deliver on this assignment.
With this new thinking, observers say, a major problem is solved in the community. Children are critical agents of change because of their pester-power. This is the reason why implementers of the project create awareness to children who percolate the same information to their societies.
“There is remarkable change in the level of awareness and action,” boasts Christopher Meioki, the head teacher at Lengishon Primary School. “Most of our pupils have educated their parents on hygiene.”
True, when we reached Bissil, Jackyline Lemayian was just refilling her leak- tin. “We also have a toilet now,” she tells us proudly pointing to a green plastic booth a few meters from the manyatta.
“We never thought toilets were crucial because we have been migrating. But nowadays, there is no much movement. We were told that lack of toilets contributes a great deal to cholera,” she says. One thing that this community seems to dread is cholera. It comes with devastating vengeance leaving a trail of death, debts and destruction on its wake.
Previously the bush worked just well. However, when rain came, it washed all that waste to a collection point where the locals also fetch water. Now you understand why cholera strikes here with abandon.
Lifestyle here dictated that such facilities like latrines were undesirable considering the continuous movement of communities. The boma (cradle) is also as closer to the shelter as possible.
This realities provide a fertile breeding ground for flies and bacteria. Normally flies have been contaminating food and water. Add to this rain water that has collected every waste, and there you have a potent concoction with which health disasters are made of.
Samuel Gitahi, a hygiene and sanitation advisor at Unicef says the new approach will have multiple benefits to children and families. To Gitahi costs on treatment of diseases will be cut while children will be able to study in comfort. Duncan Odhiambo, the district education officer corroborates Gitahi. He notes that while the government did everything to introduce free education and school feeding programme, a simple issue of hygiene was overlooked.
“This means that though you may attract many children to school, most of them would fail for lack of proper sanitary facilities. Lack of latrines for instance affect concentration and participation in class and thus contribute to poor performance,” Odhiambo observes.
“Hygiene issues have been grappled with for ages. no one really knew the formula of tackling it. every year we reported cases of deaths and hospitalization from water borne diseases, now it is solved.
Last year there was a major disease outbreak here in Bissill. It cost lives and most were admitted. This year, all is calm.
Lemayian is well schooled on matters hygiene, so she boasts. She keeps her compound clean, she has dug a pit latrine and above all she treats her water before drinking. This she does by using a chorine tablet or by exposing the water to sunlight through the Sodis technology.
“We were taught and now I’m happy. We are all clean,” she says that even her children are hygienic conscious nowadays.
To Meikoki his school goes beyond the 3 Rs. It is a center that nurtures hygiene agents.
“Children are our a great medium of relaying hygiene information,” says Meikoki. “We train them on washing hands, the importance of having toilets and purifying water before drinking. They have managed to bring change to their communities.”
In his school, just like in many others, the leak-tins are a common site. They are placed in strategic locations like near the toilet and others outside the classrooms to instill a culture of hand-washing.
“The school wash programme has been a great success in this region,” Osingo says. In fact, most schools lacked toilets, a study revealed. In others, over 100 pupils shared a latrine. Thus, Osingo and team have been lobbying CDC committees to set money aside for water and sanitation. Most committees have seen the sense of it.
“Otherwise, the the waiting time is long and hence discomforting to children. This interferes with concentration in classroom,” rues Osingo. He notes that his organization commissioned the research that established a correlation between sanitation in schools and academic performance.
“Latrines that emit foul smell were found to be the biggest distractors to learning. Pupils shy from using them for fear of the stench that is absorbed by their cloths. When they suppress the call of nature in the converse it makes them very uncomfortable,” he says.
That is why we rolled out this campaign and encouraged schools to use funds for toilets. we also help them approach donors and CDF to fund sanitation facilities. the required minimum of toilets is 1 per every 25 girls and 1 for every 30 boys. this is not the case.