Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Schools

Published on: 10/10/2018

The provision of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in schools in Ethiopia is receiving more attention, but levels of access and quality of water and sanitation services for children, as well as the practice of safe hygiene behaviours, are very low

SPLASH and IRC are both passionate about the need to improve WASH provision and services in schools. SPLASH international is a non-profit enterprise that believes every child should have clean water, clean hands and clean toilets. Through WASH programs for kids in urban Asia and Africa they support the UN SDG 6, to achieve universal and equitable access to water and sanitation for all. Splash has been working in Ethiopia since 2008. Working with the Addis Ababa Education Bureau and other municipal agencies their goal is to reach 100% of government schools in the capital. That's over 450 schools serving more than 400,000 kids.

Splash and IRC have agreed to:
- Identify opportunities to work collaboratively in pursuit of improved WASH provision and services in schools.
- Focus on Addis Ababa where there is an opportunity to demonstrate how universal access to school WASH can be achieved, and use lessons to influence school WASH across the country.
- Develop joint knowledge products to support evidence-based advocacy on sustainable WASH services delivery.
Splash and IRC have already produced a report 'School WASH in Addis Ababa - Landscaping Study Report' (IRC, 2018) together which identifies NGOs working on school WASH in Addis Ababa and what they do. IRC is also documenting and reviewing Splash's model for school WASH in preparation of their future scaling plans.