HopeCore’s WASH Program
Last month, in September, HopeCore’s WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) Program made history by putting clean drinking water and hand washing tanks in all 180 schools in the Maara Sub-County, a first in terms of how far-reaching a WASH Program has been in all of East Africa! 45,000 school children and their teachers benefit from these tanks, and the tanks have been and are being continuously monitored by a HopeCore public health worker. Here is his story…
My name is Dave Mwandiki, and I started working at Village HopeCore in 2013.My job as WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) Program Monitor and Hygiene Educator is to make sure I ride the HopeCore motorbike to all schools where HopeCore has installed tanks for safe drinking water and hand washing and provided WaterGuard for treating drinking water. The schools are both primary and secondary schools and are in the Maara Sub-County. In September, my WASH team and I completed water tank delivery to all 180 schools in the Sub-County to bring clean drinking water and hand-washing drums to 45,000 students.
Dave and fellow HopeCore public health worker Martin Murithi show off one of the 1000-liter clean drinking water tanks. Students enjoy clean drinking water from one of HopeCore’s donated tanks. I visit each of the 180 schools once every 2-3 months and talk to teachers and students about the condition of their water tanks. I make sure they are treating the drinking water with WaterGuard to make it safe, and I also make sure they have soap at their hand washing drums. Sometimes I need to go far and on very bumpy roads on the HopeCore motorbike to get to all of these schools, but I know that this is very good and important work.
Dave covers many miles and rough and rugged roads on his motorbike whenever he goes to monitor tanks at schools. I enjoy working in this department because I feel so nice to see people in good health. I educate students and others that when you wash your hands all the time (especially after you visit the toilet and before you eat) and drink treated or boiled water, you kick off some issues that can cause bad health. Since HopeCore started the WASH Program, there have been many reports that come to the office to congratulate the good work. This makes me proud of the work that I do.HopeCore has the vision to reach the entire county with the WASH Program, and I wish for more donors to come in and assist this good work that serves people and serves my God.
Written by Dave Mwandiki M’rewa, WASH Program Health Worker.
