WATER, SANITATION & HEALTH
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WATER, SANITATION AND HEALTH

Kenya’s remote and isolated communities have the right to clean water, essential sanitation, and high-quality healthcare – no one should be left behind when it comes to these basic human necessities. Pragya works to bring safe and adequate water for all their requirements to last mile communities underserved in this regard in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) of central and northern Kenya, assessing local need and implementing the most appropriate water solutions. Our hygiene and sanitation work combines awareness and capacity building in communities along with the construction of shared sanitation facilities in villages and schools. Our healthcare work is primarily targeted at reducing the extremely high maternal and infant mortality rates found amongst the region’s rural inhabitants. Through these initiatives, Pragya is working to alleviate hardships and promote dignity among neglected communities.

Success story

Improving maternal and child health in Kenya

The Laikipia, Samburu and Turkana counties are underdeveloped semi-arid and arid lands in Northern Kenya. The frequent...

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WATER, SANITATION AND HEALTH

WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AND SANITATION

The last mile communities with which Pragya works are commonly subject to desperate water shortages, and approximately half of Kenya’s rural population lacks access to adequate and safe water for their needs. In the ASAL counties of Turkana, Samburu and Laikipia, climate change coupled with population growth, expanding commercial agriculture and the failure of the state to adequately serve the last mile results in severe water scarcity and hardship for the pastoralist inhabitants of these regions. Water sources that are available are often contaminated and overexploited, contributing to the spread of disease and driving intercommunity conflict. Water-borne diseases account for over 60% of premature deaths among mobile pastoralists in the ASALs, with high rates of infant and child mortality and incidence of diarrhoea. Women and children in these ASALs can spend up to a third of their day collecting water from distant sources, placing them at risk of attack from warring communities and wildlife. In the absence of toilets, open defecation is often practised with implications on environmental hygiene, pollution of water sources, and dignity and safety, particularly for women and children.

WATER, SANITATION AND HEALTH

WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AND SANITATION

Pragya adopts several approaches to supply remote and marginalised populations in the ASALs of central and northern Kenya with adequate and safe water.

Pragya’s research on the hydrology and water stress in these arid lands helped build an understanding of the water related issues in the area and the potential of various measures and technologies to ameliorate them. Local water seminars identified community-led innovations that blend traditional water management methods with appropriate technical inputs.

Our water projects are anchored around the establishment of Water and Sanitation Committees in target locations supported to identify the local hydrological challenges, what the most appropriate solutions might be, and to manage any new solutions and approaches in the long term. 

We work with communities for the revitalisation of depleted water sources in conjunction with water purification measures, and run training sessions on rainwater harvesting in natural rock depressions as well as household water harvesting techniques. We have conserved and revitalised selected water sources used by the pastoral communities to demonstrate the methods and techniques for sustainable management of water resources, and these have included for instance, desilting of water sources and revitalisation of natural springs through afforestation in infiltration zones. We install pipelines and water tanks with filtration systems for direct water relief where appropriate, and construct special platforms for community drinking points to protect against contamination. Nomadic groups are also provided with sterile, portable water tanks to help combat the prevalence of water-borne diseases.

We train local masons in eco-sanitation techniques, with a focus on toilets, for the construction of sanitation facilities for community use, as well as in schools, encouraging in particular girls’ participation in education. Ec-san toilets are constructed in selected schools to ensure sanitation facilities for the children. We also run interactive family hygiene awareness sessions, covering basics such as handwashing, waste disposal, helping prevent the spread of water-borne diseases to which remote communities are especially susceptible. Knowledge of basic family hygiene may be taken for granted in more urban settings, but in Kenya’s marginalised last-mile and nomadic populations, understanding of disease transmission can be very limited, and a little education goes a long way.

WATER, SANITATION AND HEALTH

WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT AND SANITATION

GEOGRAPHY / LOCATION

Our Programme on Safe Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene is being/ has been implemented in Kenyan ASALs, in the counties of Laikipia, Samburu and Turkana.

  • ISSUES
  • What we do
  • Impacts

WATER, SANITATION AND HEALTH

MATERNAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTHCARE

The two counties of Samburu and Turkana, northern Kenya, have some of the world’s worst maternal mortality rates, with healthcare services in the region inadequate and often inaccessible, and research indicating widespread perceptions of state health services as expensive and unreliable; communities consequently have limited willingness to engage with state services, opting in favour of support from family and other community members. A lack of quality sexual and reproductive health education contributes to high levels of risk-associated sexual behaviour and practices, including low use of contraception, polygamy, beading (where pre-adolescent girls are assigned as sexual partners to unmarried men) and FGM. Complications in pregnancy and childbirth are among the leading causes of death in girls aged 15-19 in Kenya. In this context, redressing this urgent situation to improve lives on the ground requires new thinking and fresh approaches. 

WATER, SANITATION AND HEALTH

MATERNAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTHCARE

Pragya has developed an innovative new project for maternal and reproductive health support in Turkana and Samburu that seeks to work within established community structures and perceptions, a grassroots model that nests maternal healthcare within networks of peer-support groups to deliver low-cost health surveillance, referral and community education services. We conducted a thorough research and extensive consultations to assess the current status with regard to maternal and reproductive health, bring out the underlying issues and firm up this model. The Pragya model for maternal and reproductive health would train peer-groups to provide healthcare services to women and girls across the wider community, equipping them with health surveillance toolkits to conduct monitoring, diagnosis and referral under a community health watch scheme. Trained group ‘anchors’ (community members with experience in healthcare) would take the lead and support the delivery of group activities such as education in ante- and post-natal care, promoting reproductive health awareness and positive behavioural change, and making referrals to health services and necessary. Supportive initiatives would include community awareness sessions (open to men and boys) on sexual and reproductive health. The model is engineered to substantially improve access to quality, affordable maternal and reproductive care, raising awareness of reproductive health risks and encouraging positive attitude adjustment and behaviour change across communities. 

WATER, SANITATION AND HEALTH

MATERNAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTHCARE

GEOGRAPHY / LOCATION

Pragya's programme on maternal and neonatal child health is being/ has been based in Kenyan ASALs, in the counties of Laikipia, Samburu and Turkana.

  • ISSUES
  • What we do
  • Impacts