Mkuranga, 50km south of the capital, Dar Es Salaam, is one of Tanzania’s poorest districts. This largely Muslim community is remote and underserved. In the late 1990's only 25% households had access to safe, protected water sources – a figure that fell to just 4-10% in some rural areas. Most households used unsafe water, with high risk of contamination by the wild animals sharing these sources.
Less than 5% of rural households used latrines. Diarrhoea and water-related diseases such as eye infections and malaria were common, and hygiene behaviour such as hand-washing was poor.
In 2001 AMREF began the Water, Hygiene and Sanitation project (Watsan) in four of Mkuranga’s 15 wards, to reduce water-related disease, increase access to safe water and improve sanitation using simple, affordable, sustainable technology. The scheme improves knowledge about latrines and waste disposal, enabling the community to own, run and manage its own water and sanitation facilities.
The Watsan project reached 32,000 people directly, empowering women and girls in particular by giving them more time to engage in community development activities. In 2002, AMREF extended the scheme to tackle water-related illness and death among the under-fives.
Based on the best practices observed in the first phase of the project The European Commission and AMREF in Italy have made commitment to support expansion of the project to cover all 15 wards in order to contribute in halving by 2015, the population of people who are unable to reach or afford safe drinking water and the proportion of people who do not have access to adequate sanitation.
The project aims to:
- Increase access to adequate, affordable and sustainable water supply services among poor households in Mkuranga district from 26% to 85% by end of project.
- Improve safe hygiene and sanitation practices among beneficiaries communities through use of Participatory Hygiene And Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) approaches (40% to 85% access hygiene sanitation facilities)
- Establish community forums/structures to ensure mobilisation and participation in the planning and management of water and sanitation facilities established and operational
- Apply innovative, cost –effective and appropriate approaches to tackle context specific challenges to water and sanitation project documented, tested and scaled up.
Achievements to Date
The project has so far:
- constructed 30 shallow wells and fit them with hand pumps in wards of Kisiju,Magawa and Kitomondo.
- constructed 15 boreholes and fit them with hand pumps
- constructed 20 water jars with 3m3 capacity in Kisiju and Magawa wards
- constructed 10 VIP and ECOSAN public latrines in Kisiju ward and are currently in use
- trained 77 ToTs on participatory methods of educating the community and supervising CORPs in the villages
- trained 770 CORPS on participatory methods of educating the community on good use of safe water and better hygiene practices needed for behavior change
- trained village government, health committee and water committee members in all target villages within the project area
- trained a total of 385 local artisans for sustainability of the project
- trained 25 members of a multisectoral steering committee to support in facilitation skills to different groups that AMREF trains
Related Links
WaterAid and AMREF Briefing Paper: Water and Sanitation for People Living with HIV and AIDS: Exploring the Challenges
