Water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) programmes have also helped improve sanitation in Kenya. School WaSH facilities (water supply, toilets, hand washing facilities and disposal of cleaning materials) in many rural and urban schools do not meet the required standards or don’t exist at all.

An SNV Kenya School WaSH programme in the Isiolo district had the following three components:

• Initiating CLTS in seven schools.
• Organising school management committee (SMC) action planning workshops (SMCs identified problem areas in their school and prepared plans to address them).
• Monitoring the implementation of the SMC action plans in the schools.

The schools, selected by the district education office, were based in areas where communities practiced open defecation and placed no priority on sanitation and hygiene. Because facilities in the schools were dirty and inadequate, the students had turned to open defecation. This practice was also rampant at home, because the majority of the homesteads didn’t have latrines. The students revealed the defecation areas, which caused embarrassment to the SMCs and parents.

Further discussions took place with the SMC, parents and students about the links between what happens at home and what happens at school. Because many students practiced open defecation at home, they were likely to do so at school as well. Most of the parents have now resolved to construct latrines at home. The SMCs have developed plans and submitted budgets to meet the Kenyan standard of 1 latrine for 25 girls and 1 for 35 boys.