THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WATER, SANITATION AND GIRLS’ SCHOOLING IN AFRICA
Authors: Dr. S. P. Wamahiu with Ms. C. Barebwoha and Mr. C. Watola

Seminar on Thursday 27th January, 2011

Time: 4.00pm to 6.00pm

Venue: WERK offices, Wandege Flats, Kirichwa Road, off Argwings Kodhek road.

Women Educational Researchers of Kenya (WERK)

In Kenya, 1 in every 100 schools has no toilet and close to half the schools has no water. The challenges in the provision of good quality water and sanitation facilities in schools are varied, and include economic and socio-cultural factors.

This paper focuses on the relationship between non-availability of safe water and sanitation facilities and children’s enrolment and retention in primary school in East Africa. It argues that girls, especially in rural areas, are doubly disadvantaged where schools do not provide water for use by pupils, where washrooms are not available, where gender segregated toilets are absent, and where information on sustainable water management is missing. Many girls miss school due to menstruation, sometimes up to four days in a month, leading to a decline in their academic performance and placing them at risk of dropping out of school before completing primary.

The paper gives examples of interventions from the East African region that address some of the identified challenges in an integrated and sustainable manner. It uses the Girls’ Education Movement (GEM) as a good practice that integrates water and sanitation education into its girls’ empowerment programme. The key features of the GEM programme are: (a) use of child-to-child or peer approaches for water, sanitation and hygiene education; (b) inter-generational dialogue for attitudinal changes; (c) active involvement of teachers in the process; (d) community outreach for ensuring sustainability; (e) addressing special needs of girls through the menstrual management component; (f) advocacy and support for construction of washrooms for adolescent girls and gender segregated toilet facilities.

1 Paper prepared for presentation at the Integrated Water Management Conference, Murdoch University, Perth 4th February, 2010