Access to clean and safe water key to maintaining girls in school

Dar es Salaam. Access to clean and safe water is among other basic needs required by every person in order for Tanzania and African countries in general to attain the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 (SDGs).

Specifically the SDGs goal number six which aims at ensuring access to clean and safe water , unfortunately, most schools lack clean water which contribute to the number of girls staying away from school during their menstrual cycle.

To ensure access to clean and safe water, so far Tanzania is among other countries that striving through the Tanzania Growth and Poverty Strategy (MKUKUTA) are part of the country’s vision 2025, Big Results Now and election manifesto of every political party.

United Nations Children Fund (Unicef) country representative Ms Rebecca Budima says that despite the government effort to ensure safe clean water reaches everyone ,  girls in certain schools across the country still miss classes due to lack of water.

She says that during their menstrual circle most school girls fail to attend classes because the environment is not conducive to enable them spend hours in schools.

According to her, despite the government ensuring access to clean water services is accessed by every girl, joint efforts are needed to support the government to enable the SDGs as required.

“Private sector and community in general have a collective responsibility to directly participate in the plans to enable reduce or eliminate water problems in schools completely,” she said.

Explaining further Ms Budima added the problem with girls in schools is mainly because most toilets are dirty due to lack of water to clean themselves.

According to her, as a result girls fail completely to attend classes, therefore, in the end they stop going to school completely.

She stresses that access to water is a critical issue to focus on in order to achieve the SDGs and ensuring that every school child learns without facing such undue interruptions.

  Kisimili secondary school teacher who preferred to remain anonymous believes water is a social service that every school must have, but, unfortunately, many schools don’t have access.

 He says that though he has been teaching at Kisimili for a long time the school has been facing constant water shortages.

“Most of the time students are forced to wake up early to go to fetch for water before classes, something that shows that access to water is still a challenge that we have to deal with at a national level,” he said.

 He stresses that the magnitude of the problem was not very big because sometimes students use borehole  water but  to make it worse a school with 1200 students has only one hand pumped borehole.

“We have 800 girls whereas there are 542 boys, you can see that the challenge is quite big,” he says.

 The challenge, he says,  is further compounded when the girls have to go outside school to fetch water outside the school to bathe before they go for classes in the morning.

In Tanzania, access to clean, safe water and sanitation in schools and health facilities is declining. Hygiene practices are inadequate and there is insufficient coordination, emergency preparedness and response capacity.

 School children are particularly being affected and exposed to unsafe water, hygiene and sanitation and according to Raleigh Tanzania (2017) about 84 per cent of schools lack functional hand washing facilities.

There are millions of children around the world who do not have access to clean water or decent toilets in schools; this especially puts young girls and adolescents girls in danger.  As a result around 900 million cannot wash their hands properly.

 According to the World Health Organization and Unicef’s, earlier reports 620 million children do not have decent toilets.

 Lack of decent hygiene facilities discourages pupils particularly girls from attending school and completing their education.

 It further says that dirty toilets can also cause girls to get urinary tract infections (UTI’s) and other diseases like diarrhea and cholera which are all related to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene.

 Water is a basic right and also an important life necessity. Women in rural areas spend an average 125 million hours a day collecting water by walking long distances from their homes and while carrying the water containers on their head.

Lack of adequate water and sanitation affects girls more than boys as this can make girls vulnerable and face sexual violence as they go collect their water or use latrines.

 Kisilima local government chairperson Mr Gady Amos says he was aware about the water challenge adding that it was the local community’s responsibility to work with the government to enable accessibility of clean and safe water.

Currently, Unicef is working with the Tanzanian government and development partners on several priority areas to ensure access to improved sanitation and hygiene in rural and urban communities.

 To develop sustainable solutions for provision of WASH facilities in health and educational institutions, and assist in framing national WASH guidelines and toolkits for effective implementation of WASH services, ensure sustainable and equitable access to safe drinking water in rural and urban areas.