Environmental Advocacy Program
Introduction
School is important not only because it provides a place for children to study but also to inculcate values that benefit the rest of their lives. Nevertheless, In 2016, in Schools in Tanzania, only 38% had adequate latrines, 20% had water supply facilities, and less than 10% had functioning handwashing facilities. The Tanzania water source is unevenly distributed, lacks water purification technology, and the water supply is irregular and expensive in most areas; natural disasters are currently raging.
Children in schools cannot access safe drinking water, which negatively influences school operations. High disease infection rates and a lack of sanitized latrines are lowering student attendance, leading to poor education.
As a result, Water Purification Technology has to be improved to solve the water sanitation problem, and organizations, such as Art in Tanzania, are trying their best to get funding to help children get a better school environment.
Main Cause
There is not a single school in Tanzania that would have clean drinking water. Among the 36000 schools in the country, some even can’t supply water at all; they have no water, no sanitation, and no power. How does this happen? We will look into it through 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 those areas need the stamina to take on a journey to get 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 resultful academic achievement.
Besides, the water supply in most areas is irregular and expensive; there does not exist a 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 incapable of long-distance activity. This also affects the stability of schools.
Despite the minimal amount of water supplies, little available water sanitation measurement is 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 support a reliable water sanitation system, and existing technology can not give answers using this amount of funding.
Results
The water supply and sanitation are affected by the above three causes and generate great difficulty for school operations. Lack of clean water supply affects not only students’ physical health but also 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, and this workload stops students from focusing on their academic performance. They are the country’s future, and clean water should not be a first-place concern for them. Even if they get natural water, unsanitized water still leads to a high infection rate of waterborne diseases, such as diarrhoea, Typhoid fever, and Escherichia Coli. The viruses and bacteria in unsanitized water cause these waterborne diseases. Students who drink unsanitized water or use those water to clean their hands are easily infected, and with poor health conditions, they can not have a colourful school life.
In addition, the lack of clean water leads to little latrines supply in the school. This will lower the attendance of girls since they have requirements for sanitary latrines during their menstruation. 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 low sanitation and hygiene situation. The more students share one latrine, the lower the sanitization condition. Frequent absence from school leads to low academic performance and even a high drop rate; data shows that more than 50% of girls drop out of primary school because of poor sanitation conditions. The schools require adequate water and sanitation resources to improve students’ attendance and produce better teaching results.
Future
To make clean water available in the school, currently, Bore Hole Drilling and Solar Water Purification Technology are the methods Tanzania is trying to use. Bore Hole Drilling is a good tool to secure water sources when the public water source is not available. However, the pilot does not have a Bore Hole Drilling option. Compared with Bore Hole Drilling, Solar Water Purification Technology has no such flaw. The schools can install more purification units to clean the water and reduce the number of waterborne diseases, and the cost of those units is more affordable for clean water.
To help more children access clean water, Art in Tanzania continues working to help and assist children in the local community. With the continued effect of COVID-19, the number of volunteers in Tanzania is decreasing, and we lack 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/
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