At the Masanduko Primary School, located in Masanduko Village in the Chikwawa District, Malawi, there are 499 girls, 496 boys and several staff members who are unable to use the school’s latrines which are severely damaged and very dangerous for use.
Because of the toilet facilities’ decrepit condition, they all have no choice but to use the “bush” to relieve themselves, also known as “open defecation,” or OD, which leads the area to become a breeding ground for deadly infectious diseases and creating a serious health hazard for everyone at the school and those living in the community.
In addition, due to its openness, what little nearby water access is available is contaminated by waterborne and contagious diseases.
According to a 2023 National Library of Medicine report on The Status of Sanitation in Malawi, ensuring access to adequate and equitable sanitation and ending open defecation by 2030 is the focus of a United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), also known as Global Goals, which were adopted by the UN in 2015 “as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that by 2030 all people enjoy peace and prosperity.”
Specifically, Progress on Sanitation (SDG target 6.2) states, “By 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations.”
However, according to the status of sanitation report, “Whilst Malawi has made considerable progress in providing sanitary provision for the population, we estimate that, at the current rate of the provision of sanitary facilities, Malawi will not reach SDG 6.2 by 2030 under any of the modelled socioeconomic scenarios.”
What this means is that thanks to our supporters and our in-country grassroots partners, such as Faithful Heart Foundation (FHF) chairperson Alex Steven Bango, we are working to address the dire situation in Malawi and elsewhere, focusing on schools identified as being most in need of immediate action.
The UN notes that “safe and accessible sanitation has been declared a fundamental human right,” and that “sanitation is central to human health, not only through disease prevention but also the promotion of human dignity and well-being.”
Tragically, a lack or safe water and sanitation is the world’s largest cause of illnesses, and many of these illnesses are by diarrheal disease, which remains the second leading cause of death in children under five, killing 525,000 children under five each year.
Among those lacking basic sanitation, over half live in sub-Saharan Africa. Like much of sub-Saharan Africa, Malawi has a high proportion of the population without access to improved or basic sanitation.
In 2018, the Malawi Census estimated that 6 percent of the population were practicing open defecation, meaning that in a country with a population of 20 million, roughly 1,200,000 individuals each day are relieving themselves in the bush.
In his request for grant funding to construct two buildings with six latrines, Alex says the three main objects of the project are to reduce absenteeism and school drop out rates while increasing their pass rates, as well as reducing the number of cases of sexual assault and unwanted pregnancies.
Funding will be used for trench digging, construction of the buildings, roofing, purchasing bricks, cement, iron sheets, plywood, sand, quarry stones, paint and more.
The World Bank reported of a similar situation at another school in the country where “the toilets were not only dilapidated but insufficient… The threat of waterborne diseases, including cholera, was huge, leaving the entire school very vulnerable to illness.”
Cholera is a serious concern in the country, as The World Bank, noted that “On top of this crisis, the 2022 cholera outbreak saw a recorded 10,823 cumulative number of cholera cases and 316 deaths. All 29 districts in Malawi at some point reported cholera cases.
“Factors associated with the outbreak included poor food hygiene, lack of safe water, and low access and usage of latrines (open defecation). And then came the rain, making the situation worse, putting more pressure to the health sector that was already strained in managing other outbreaks.”
This project will mark our third joint WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) project in Malawi in partnership with FHF at the Konzere and John Village schools today benefiting a total of approximately 1,500 students and school staff, with 1,000 more to come at Masanduko Primary thanks to our supporters.
And this from the girls’ matron at the Konzere Primary School, Debora Mkweya, upon completion of our WASH project there:
“THANK YOU, Bread and Water for Africa®. You have improved our hygiene. The construction of these beautiful restrooms has indeed healed us. You have brought smiles on our faces. Hygiene and sanitation-related diseases will no longer be our guests. We are so grateful. We thank you for respecting the dignity of a girl child.”
