Environmental Advocacy Program
Introduction
School is essential not only because it provides a place for children to study, but also because it instils values that benefit them for the rest of their lives. Nevertheless, in 2016, schools in Tanzania had only 38% with adequate latrines, 20% with water supply facilities, and less than 10% with functioning handwashing facilities. The water source in Tanzania is unevenly distributed, lacks access to water purification technology, and the water supply is irregular and expensive in most areas; natural disasters are currently ravaging the country.
Children in schools often lack access to safe drinking water, which negatively impacts school operations. And the overall well-being of students. High disease infection rates and a lack of sanitised latrines are contributing to lower student attendance, which in turn leads to poor educational outcomes.
As a result, water purification technology needs to be improved to address the water sanitation problem, and organisations, such as Art in Tanzania, are working diligently to secure funding to provide children with a better school environment.
Main Cause
There is not a single school in Tanzania that has clean drinking water. Among the 36,000 schools in the country, some can’t even supply water; they lack water, sanitation, and power. How does this happen? We will investigate the three leading causes.
Surprisingly, Tanzania holds many natural water resources. Yet, many citizens have minimal access to water. This is because those mighty water catchments in rivers and lakes are unevenly distributed around the country, and many arid areas are home to large populations. With no urban water pipelines, villagers in these areas need the stamina to undertake a journey to obtain fresh water. Schools in those areas have no way to provide students with large amounts of clean water, which causes great difficulty for regular and successful academic achievement.
Besides, the water supply in most areas is irregular and expensive; there is no stable supply channel, or to be more specific, the convenient water supply is way too expensive for most people. People in those areas can only spend large amounts of money buying water if they are unable to engage in long-distance activities. This also affects the stability of schools.
Despite the limited availability of water supplies, inadequate water sanitation measures are also a problem. The clean water supply in the whole country is exceedingly rare. The possible financial support and domestic technology can not provide a practical approach. The financial support for schools cannot sustain a reliable water sanitation system, and existing technology cannot provide answers using this amount of funding.
ResultsThe water supply and sanitation are affected by the above three causes, generating significant difficulty for school operations. A lack of clean water supply affects not only students’ physical health but also their school attendance and regular academic progress.
The current situation for students is that their health is severely affected by the lack of clean water. Students need to spend time fetching water from distant places, which hinders their ability to focus on academic performance. They are the country’s future, and clean water should not be their primary concern. Even if they have access to natural water, unsanitized water still leads to a high infection rate of waterborne diseases, such as diarrhoea, Typhoid fever, and E. coli. The viruses and bacteria in unsanitized water cause these waterborne diseases. Students who drink unsanitized water or use it to clean their hands are easily infected, and with poor health conditions, they can ot have a colourful school life.
Additionally, the lack of clean water results in a limited supply of latrines at the school. This will lower the attendance of girls, as they have sanitary requirements during their menstrual cycle. According to the NATIONAL GUIDELINE FOR WATER, SANITATION, AND HYGIENE FOR TANZANIA SCHOOLS, more than 70% of schools in Tanzania have fewer latrines than the national standard, “20 girls and 25 boys per drop hole”, and many of the existing ones have a low sanitation and hygiene situation. The more students share one latrine, the lower the sanitisation condition. Frequent absence from school leads to low academic performance and a high drop-out rate; data show that more than 50% of girls drop out of primary school due to poor sanitation conditions. Schools require adequate water and sanitation resources to improve students’ attendance and achieve better teaching results.
FutureTo make clean water available in schools, Tanzania currently uses borehole drilling and solar water purification technology. Borehole drilling is a valuable tool for securing water sources when a public water source is unavailable. However, the pilot does not have a Bore Hole Drilling option. Compared to borehole drilling, Solar Water Purification Technology has no such flaw. The schools can install additional purification units to clean the water and reduce the incidence of waterborne diseases, and the cost of these units is more affordable for clean water.
To help more children access clean water, Art in Tanzania continues to work with and assist children in the local community. With the continued impact of COVID-19, the number of volunteers in Tanzania is decreasing, and we are facing a lack of financial support for schools. If you would like to volunteer or make a donation, please do not hesitate to visit our website for more information: www.artintanzania.org
Sources:
https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2018/04/02/tanzania-investing-in-water-and-sanitation-reaps-benefits-for-poverty-alleviation
https://www.jica.go.jp/english/news/focus_on/water/water_6.html
https://lifewater.org/blog/7-most-common-waterborne-diseases-and-how-to-prevent-them/
