How a water faucet can fill up a classroom

We passed by a few manyattas, the traditional dwellings of Turkana people, before pulling in front of the three-building school, which serves 370 students, mostly from pastoralist families, with a staff of eight teachers.  Some of the children walk over three kilometers from home to the school. 

 

When drought hit the region, the Naotin teachers noticed a sharp decrease in attendance as more and more children spent their days searching for water for their families. “The situation was very, very, very bad,” remarks Peter Ebeter, one of Naotin’s teachers. “The children were getting water from a seasonal river, 4.5 kilometers away from [the school]. Sometimes, they would go late…and you know it is a forest, so they were bitten by snakes.” 

 

Snakes were not the only danger the children faced. Students often returned home with untreated river water contaminated by the widespread practice among surrounding villagers of open-field defecation. 

 

At the time, Naotin had no access to water. “Most humanitarian aid organizations forget these small schools,” explains James Lachule, an International Rescue Committee water engineer. In its assessment of in-need schools outside of Lodwar, however, the IRC found the primary school.

 

In 2010, the school, desperate for water, had erected a substandard storage tank that collapsed, resulting in the tragic death of the head teacher. “The IRC asked us in early September what we wanted,” recalls Ebeter. “We said we needed water and, within a day, they constructed a water tank…immediate action!” The IRC installed two 5,000-liter (more than 1,300 gallons) tanks, plus hand-washing facilities, and even supplied soap. 

 

Teacher Peter Ebeter turns on the faucet of one of the water tanks
installed by the IRC. (Photo: Jane Yang/IRC)

 

With support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the IRC delivers water to the school every week, and students take water home for their families in the evening. Water is also made available to the most vulnerable members of the community, including the elderly and people with disabilities. Additionally, the IRC conducts hygiene education sessions with the students of Naotin. 

 

As I took a tour of Naotin’s classrooms, Ekiru Eyanae, a student in the second grade, shyly demonstrated the proper way to wash hands, turning on an imaginary faucet and then using imaginary soap to scrub thoroughly.

 

“The drought has most affected the pastoralist communities,” says Ewoi Zakayo, a village elder and father of five Naotin students. “Many of us have turned to farming as our livestock has died off.” As a consequence, many pastoralist families are permanently settled, and their children benefit. “The students who dropped out are coming back because they have heard that we have water,” says Ebeter. “By January next year, enrollment will be very high.” Some 150 additional students are expected at Naotin in 2012

 

“The IRC is the first agency that has done work,” declares Ebeter. “Others made promises, but the IRC is the one that has done what they said they would. And they are still continuing.” 

 

Indeed, the IRC plans to construct new latrine facilities in the school as the overburdened existing ones do not meet public health standards and are at the point of collapsing. 

 

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