Water solution for the Mutuka Community and local Secondary School

In 2019 the Mutuka Secondary School had an extremely erratic and unreliable water supply. The Headmaster explained how this had been impacting on the students' experience, for example meals might not be ready at lunchtime because the chef had no water to cook the lunchtime meal, or growing food in their market garden going well until suddenly the lack of water caused crops to wilt and die; or the challenges of maintaining sanitation and hygiene in the toilets when there is no water. The surrounding community too was also struggling, spending hour upon hour by the taps just to collect water for their basic needs. The Headmaster and the Chair of the Water Committee said they had a plan to address the problem and were we interested? Of course, we love community led development!

The local leaders, community members, school leaders and Bawasa (the local water board) assembled and discussed the various water problems and identified the most practical and effective solution. Working together a plan was developed and once we secured funds, the community came together en masse to dig trenches for the new pipeline. The Bawasa engineers used their expertise to coordinate the laying and connecting the new pipes.

This was a truly joint effort and both the school and the community members are 100% satisfied. When visiting the community taps we found no queues of people or buckets and community members said there was now peace in the community because "we no longer struggle with or argue about water - this is an historic event".

The school has been able to supply water directly to staff and student toilets, improving the sanitation and hygiene and supporting girls to feel more comfortable at school. Meals can now be prepared and served on time rather than eating into afternoon classes and the market garden is thriving. When asked what the best thing was about having water, a student said… “The toilets are now fresh…”.

When we first visited the school in 2017, they wanted to start a market garden and asked for funding. Following discussions we suggested reducing expenditure on firewood by installing a fuel efficient stove and allocating the savings to establishing the garden. They agreed to this and we built the stove. The savings were used to establish the garden, which is now self-sufficient. Savings from the firewood are now allocated to other school needs most recently the instalment of new shelves in the science laboratory.

Partnership - Participation - Progress