Open projects | Funded projects | Completed projects | The issues

Project report

Kids clean water project, Mpofini village South Africa , RUN BY: Oxfam Australia | STATUS: COMPLETED

AUD 20,004

Raised from 9,236 people

Project Background

The Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) program, supported by Oxfam, aims to increase access to, and the effective use of, improved and sustainable water supplies, and sanitation and hygiene services. The WASH program has a special focus on marginalised groups in the community such as women, children, the elderly & disabled and how to reduce their vulnerability. Woza Moya has been chosen along with five other existing Oxfam partners to pilot this new program, in relation to Food Security, HIV and Child Protection.

Project Outcomes

Seven partners in South Africa receiving funding through the AACES program are successfully integrating WASH activities into their core program areas.

This has resulted in:

An additional 7,695 beneficiaries (2,966 male and 4,729 female) benefiting from either improved access to water and sanitation services or increased knowledge of better hygiene practices. This, along with continued engagement and capacity building, has also resulted in gains in those partners’ other core program areas, namely increased food security, better health outcomes and an improvement in the lives of women, youth, children and people with disabilities.
Ten partners not funded through the AACES program also began rolling out WASH activities after Oxfam built their capacity by providing training through Training and Resources in Early Education (TREE), an organisation that does training for early childhood development (ECD) practitioners, and Oxfam partners that offer home-based care services.
WASH activities have become key components of Oxfam’s partners’ work and this has been the catalyst for success in other outcome areas. The number of beneficiaries reached by non-AACES-funded WASH activities amounts to 7,882 (3,002 males and 4,880 females).

Program Challenges

Despite the gains made by government in addressing the sanitation service backlogs, challenges related to sanitation provision were reported across all the OAU partners. The deficits in sanitation at many schools undermine children’s rights to basic education, and have a disproportionate impact on women and girls.

Isibani Sethemba reported an increase in poor hygiene practices in the town of Ingwavuma in KZN and that the household gardening activities it supports were being affected by the drought. Farmer Support Group (FSG) experienced difficulty implementing its methods in areas where government promotes contradictory methods, and Biowatch reported that the limited involvement of youth represents a challenge for sustainability. Lack of access to water and land remain challenges that negatively hinder the progress of all agro-ecology work and food security projects. An amendment to the land claims legislation was signed into law in June 2014, but it holds no solution for farm workers who have never owned land. WFP was involved in government consultations leading to the drafting of policy relating to the rights of people working the land, but has reservations about the draft policy.

Lessons Learned

Citizens are responding with increasing dissatisfaction to poor service delivery, including poor delivery of sanitation services. Given the role of sanitation and hygiene in preventing disease transmission and providing dignity, an influencing strategy on sanitation and hygiene is perfectly aligned to the NLV program. The integrated approach that OAU and its partners have taken is proving to be sustainable in both outcomes and impact.

Partners focusing on WASH issues have strategically decided to focus the remaining two years on the softer issues of WASH programming.

Some partners demonstrated increased confidence and willingness to participate and engage in policy-making processes, but it seems much still needs to be done to capacitate other partners. It was evident that the network culture introduced by OAU has been adopted, and this networking culture needs to be promoted. The progress already made by certain partners with advocacy work is outstanding and it is imperative that mechanisms continue to be identified and implemented that will enable civil society to take advantage of opportunities in the future.

Original project proposal

Project goal:

Get clean water, sanitation and hygiene to the 23,000 people living in Ufafa region, South Africa and prevent deadly diseases like diarrhoea.

What this project cost covers:

An example of what this project contribution from Footprints might cover:

$3,000: provide vital training about water, sanitation and hygiene to five early childhood educators, so that they can pass the life-saving knowledge onto the children in their care.
$10,000: provide 500 families with a tippy tap, an ingenious device that ensures they can always wash their hands, protecting them from deadly diseases.
$7,000: provide four communities with a water harvesting tank, giving them access to fresh rainwater so they don’t have to rely on polluted springs.

Water and Sanitation issues in South Africa

In Ufafa’s Mpofini Village, 12 families share one polluted spring. They have almost constant diarrhoea... one of the most deadly diseases on earth.

Globally, diarrhoea and other diseases caused by dirty water take the life of a child every twenty seconds. Even worse, these children are the smallest and most vulnerable because they’re aged under five-years-old.

Every time the children of Mpofini Village drink from their polluted springs, they’re not only making themselves sick — they’re risking their lives.

Oxfam has already helped establish two demonstration sites in the Ufafa region, where they've installed water harvesting tanks, waterless enviroloos, and our ingenious hand-washing device — the tippy tap.

After a test run of installing tippy taps in a small number of houses in the Ufafa region, There’s been a 50% reduction in diarrhoea.

Photo: Yolanda Dlamini (4 yrs) who goes to Woza Moya playschool, uses a tippy tap to wash her hands.

Case Study:

In a remote region called Ufafa, there’s a little girl named Yolanda who saved her entire family from disease — using just four sticks and a plastic container.

Together these simple items make a tippy tap, a life-saving hand-washing device that Yolanda is using to stop deadly diseases from killing her and her family.

Kids are curious. They’re fast learners. And unlike their parents or grandparents, they’re not stuck in old customs and beliefs. They try something new, see that it helps, and then keep doing it. And most importantly of all — they just won’t stop talking about it!

Yolanda’s grandfather, Reginald, told us about his granddaughter’s enthusiasm for hand-washing:
“We see her doing things and we follow because we realise that she is a very clever child, and she knows how to do beautiful things. What I have noticed — that is important — is that she washes her hands after using the toilet and before having meals, her hands must be clean. She’s made a very big difference.”

Yolanda doesn’t deserve to die from dirty water. No child does. As her grandmother, Phumlile, says, “When I look at her, I wish for her success because this brain she’s got must develop … Because she has a dream.”

How was it this funded?

Thanks to hundreds of tiny donations from these online businesses and their customers.

World Nomads Australia

World Nomads NZ

Across 31 countries, we work in partnership with local communities to overcome poverty and injustice. Our work includes long-term development projects, responding to emergencies and campaigning for a more just world.