Water Access & Bathrooms Allow Girls in Kenya to Focus on Their Futures

Water is a top priority in arid communities around the world. And the part of western Kenya where Mercy lives is no exception. Mercy’s community is largely made up of livestock farmers.

Unfortunately, it’s also a community where girls have a huge disadvantage. The chances of a girl finishing school are slim. Girls are expected to care for their families and younger siblings. And considering that schools are usually far away from where families live, just getting to and from school every day can be dangerous and prohibitive. Girls as young as 12 are married off to older men.

Mercy is a boarding student at Ngengechwo Primary School, which is part of a CWS education program. She recalls how she and the other girls would go to a community water point after school each day to bring back water for their evening and morning. It was a long walk to the one community borehole that served both people and livestock. “It was stressful to fetch water, since herdsmen put their livestock first before women or school children,” she says. “We had to wait until all the animals were watered before we could fetch our water and go back to school.” Sometimes the men would harass the girls, and forced marriages sometimes came out of these interactions.

Back at the school, bathrooms were also a problem. There was only one latrine for boys and one for girls. When you had to go, you often had to wait in a long line. Many students used nearby lands instead, which led to high levels of diarrhea and water-related diseases. It was unsanitary, unsafe and undignified.

CWS teamed up with the school management and parents to address these challenges. Soon there were more bathrooms. The school now has huge water tanks, and the water is tapped to several water points on the school grounds. Mercy, who is now 15, says she has seen a huge change in herself and her fellow students. She says that all the students now use the bathrooms. “Proper personal hygiene has improved amongst us,” she says. “Dignity can also be observed on our faces, since we have washrooms where we can change and dispose of used sanitary pads without anyone knowing.”

“Life has changed and become much more comfortable at our school,” Mercy says. “Many thanks to CWS for these wonderful projects in our school.”

Soon, Mercy will sit for Kenya’s Certificate for Primary Education. This is a huge step for girls from a community where many of their peers are forced to drop out due to early marriage or pregnancy. We’re proud to be able to help Mercy and her peers as they focus on what’s important: reaching their potential.

A Safe Dormitory for Girls at a Kenyan School

Delphine is determined to learn. She’s a 14-year-old student at Ngengechwo Primary School in rural western Kenya.

Because the school is far away from her house, Delphine is a boarding student. It allows her to focus on her studies and means that she doesn’t have to make a long, dangerous journey to and from school each day.

Delphine has been a boarding student since she was in Grade 5. At that time, though, there wasn’t a dormitory at the school. The girls who were boarding students would sleep on their classroom floors at night. But space was limited, so it was a logistical nightmare. They had to rearrange the classroom every morning and evening. They would take their bedding outside every morning and hang it over a fence. Each girl had a metal box to keep her personal items in, which were kept at the back of the classroom. But those boxes were hard to access during the day and were noisy and disruptive to get into. “The classrooms we used to sleep in were very congested and dusty. Having our personal items destroyed by others was the order of the day,” she remembers.

The school didn’t have enough bathrooms, and the girls would go to a nearby river to bathe. The worst part of the month was when a girl would get her period. “It was very difficult for us girls to open our boxes to pick out a sanitary towel for changing because the other students, especially the boys, would laugh at us when they noticed. Others would avoid you entirely because in our culture it is believed that when a girl is on her period, she should stay far away from others and should not touch anything commonly used by others,” she explains.

Needless to say, it wasn’t a good situation. In fact, it was so hard that Delphine gave up boarding at one point, opting to live at home and make the long journey each day.

But today is a different story. Ngengechwo Primary School is now part of a CWS education program. Among other upgrades, it now has a dormitory building for girls. There is water on site as well as sanitary bathrooms that Delphine and the other students can use.

In fact, Delphine is now one of 84 girls living in the new dormitory. “I give thanks to CWS because on year [after I stopped boarding at the school] you came to the aid of the girls studying at Ngengechwo. You came to put up a big girls’ dormitory with enough space and washrooms as well as the latrines at the school boarding section,” Delphine says. “The environment changed to a very friendly one, enhancing our privacy, safety, health and performance.”

In fact, Delphine noted that a rare phenomenon is happening at Ngengechwo. “Since its construction, the girls’ population enrolled at the school for boarding has been constantly increasing and, contrary to the normal, has surpassed the boys’ population by far. Were it not for this facility, many of us girls would not be here today. Thank you very much to CWS.”

Given the Chance, Girls in Kenya Become Trailblazers

When Linnet was young, her future was nearly guaranteed. And the outlook was bleak.

Linnet lives in a rural part of western Kenya. In her community, being a girl is a disadvantage. The chances of a girl finishing school are slim. Girls are expected to care for their families and younger siblings. And considering that schools are usually far away from where families live, just getting to and from school every day can be dangerous and prohibitive. Girls as young as 12 are married off to older men. Many are forced to go through female genital mutilation, known as FGM, a harmful traditional practice meant to mark a transition to adulthood. The chances of a girl dropping out of school are much higher than the chances that she graduates.

This was Linnet’s world when she started going to Chepkram Primary School as a child. She describes the school as “stagnated” at that time. Her community was set in its ways; most girls went through FGM and were married off young. When that was each girl’s future, why would she need to finish school?

Things changed when Linnet was 11 and her school joined a CWS program focused on education and improving schools. Through the program, the school made some big changes. Soon there was a new dormitory for girls on the school grounds so that the female students could live safely at the school. New water taps meant access to water on the school grounds, and new bathrooms guaranteed the dignity of students who needed to relieve themselves. Linnet and her classmates began to feel more secure.

Security came hand in hand with hope. The CWS program reached far beyond the school grounds to engage the community in conversations about girls’ educations. Why not let girls stay in school and finish their educations? What new careers and opportunities could that open up for them?

Linnet is 15 today. She’s in grade 8 and will soon be sitting for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education. “Your training on life skills greatly helped build my confidence,” she told a CWS team member recently. “It strengthened my understanding of the possibility of girls excelling in different spheres of life through education. I did not know it was possible for girls in our school to reach the level I’m in today.”

The school has been around for 16 years, but Linnet is in only the third round of girls to sit for the exams. “The reason why the school stagnated all those years was because of the lack of knowledge among us girls and our parents about how it could be possible for girls in this region to proceed to higher levels of education through our commitment to learning, as opposed to being subjected to retrogressive cultural practices like FGM and child marriage,” she says. “Now, for me, this has become a thing of the past. Both my parents and I understand the importance of education, and I’m determined to reach the greatest level of education excellence in the future.”