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World Water Day: Leaving No One Behind, Improving WASH Conditions in Our Public Schools



On the 22nd of March every year, the United Nations (UN) celebrates World Water Day. This year, 2019, the theme is: "Leaving No One Behind". This is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) goal 6: "Water For All by 2030".

Water is a necessity of life, so much so that the body contains two-thirds water in various forms. Water is a major constituent of cells, tissues, organs and other body parts. Most of the food we eat is composed of water in varying degree, even the air we breath has some amount of moisture (water) in it. It is therefore safe to say that water is as essential as air, because water is life. Water is needed in our day to day activities, from drinking to cooking, washing, cleaning, bathing, etc. It is a stated fact that humans can survive up to seven days without food, but they cannot survive seven days without water.

This article focuses on water, sanitation and hygiene as it relates to public schools. Saving Hand Development Initiative (SHADE-IN) team visited some public secondary schools in Benin City, Edo State, Nigetia and we observed that many of them lack good water and toilet facilities. Some of the schools have no toilets at all for students and hence students recourse to defecating within and around the school premises. This situation is worse-off for the female students, who have no privacy for proper hygiene especially during their menstrual cycles.

Sanitation is defined as the process of keeping places free from dirt, infection, diseases, etc by removing waste, trash and garbage, while hygiene is defined as the things you do, to keep yourself and your surroundings clean in order to maintain good health.

With the aforementioned definition of sanitation and hygiene, we could safely say that many of our public primary and secondary schools have poor sanitation and hygiene conditions as evidenced by the amount of undisposed litter in their school premises, dilapidated structures in some public schools, over grown weeds/bushes, amongst others.

This lack of water, poor sanitation and hygiene conditions in public schools could hamper the health of students and this could further affect their academic performance. In one of the schools visited, some of the students we interacted with told us how they would go into the host community in search for water which could cause them miss some lessons in class, expose them to dangers, yet most times, they don't have water to wash their hands after sweeping their classrooms.

SHADE-IN would therefore call on the government and other stakeholders in the educational sector to as a matter of urgency intervene in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) conditions of public schools by installing bore holes,  providing electricity to pump water, installing toilets and wash hand basins, paying waste managers to manage refuse rather than burn them and pollute the environment, which is the case with those schools with this challenges.

Also, SHADE-IN's team of three persons Roland Ojeruse, Bliss Ojeruse and Rebecca Alasa, visited the Director, Home of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), Nnimmo Bassey and his partner, Evelyn Bassey, at their head office, Benin City, Edo State, on 20th February, 2019. HOMEF is an organisation who believes in, promotes and advocates  for environmental and climate justice and certainly quality WASH conditions.
Hence, SHADE-IN team were presented with copies of HOMEF's publications tagged: Eco-Instigator, a publication which features exciting, informative, educative and inspiring articles/reports aimed at instigating actions to save our Mother Earth and recover our collective human dignity.

With a call to address educational transformation, especially of our public school systems, SHADE-IN will certainly work towards ensuring healthy WASH conditions in public schools in Edo State and Nigeria.

Let us know: What is the WASH condition in your school or a school you know about?

You may send your responses to our email stated below.

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#WASH #WASHforSchools #SHADEIN #NeighbourhoodTransformation #NT #WWD #WorldWaterDay #LeavingNoOneBehind #WaterForAll #SDGs

-By Rebecca Alasa and Bliss Ojeruse (SHADE-IN)

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