In the rural heart of Kenya, where every drop of water can determine whether a child attends school or stays home, a project emerges as a symbol of transformation and water justice. Despite global technological advances, over 2 billion people still lack access to safely managed drinking water, and nearly 3.6 billion live without adequate sanitation. This is not a technical failure—it is a failure of vision. But it is also the starting point for a bold, measurable solution. This water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) project in 15 rural schools across Makueni, Kenya, aims to reverse that trend through direct, traceable, and quantifiable interventions aligned with the Water Positive approach. More than 5,490 people—students, teachers, and school staff—will gain access to safe water, dignified sanitation, and reliable hygiene infrastructure, generating immediate benefits for health, education, and community wellbeing.
This initiative is driven by an urgent reality: in many rural communities across Kenya, schools operate without reliable water points or safe latrines. This impacts not only child health, but also school attendance—especially for girls. The project’s strategic objective is to ensure that every school is equipped with safe water infrastructure, dignified sanitation, and functional handwashing stations, while also integrating a participatory education program to promote sustainable WASH practices from early childhood.
Designed and implemented by Aqua Positive in partnership with the local Simon Damba Foundation, and supported by low-maintenance, modular technology, the project goes beyond infrastructure—it empowers school communities with tools for governance, maintenance, and water stewardship. The water benefits will be monitored using the Volumetric Water Benefit (VWB) and WASH Benefits Accounting Frameworks, ensuring that every liter of water delivered, treated, or reused translates into real, measurable improvements in equity and public health. This project fulfills the three fundamental principles: additionality (it would not happen without this initiative), traceability (each intervention is documented), and intentionality (it is purposefully designed to solve a critical local WASH challenge).
In regions where water access defines the limits of educational opportunity, this project transforms each installed system into a gateway to long-term development. The 15 schools targeted in this intervention will receive rainwater harvesting systems, storage tanks, basic treatment units, and dignified latrines—all adapted to the semi-arid climate of Makueni. In addition, strategically placed handwashing stations will be installed, and menstrual hygiene management workshops will be delivered, supported with reusable supplies—empowering girls to stay in school with dignity and confidence. Overall, the initiative is expected to deliver more than 4 million liters of safe water per year, equivalent to the annual consumption of approximately 2,500 rural families.
The benefits are both immediate and structural: reduced incidence of waterborne diseases, improved school attendance, strengthened public health education, and a drastic reduction in the burden of water collection—typically shouldered by girls and female staff. The modular, low-maintenance solution is easily replicable in rural settings across Africa, Asia, or Latin America, adaptable to local climate and regulatory contexts. All impacts will be validated using VWBA and WASH Benefits Accounting protocols, recording volumes delivered, treated, and reused, as well as improvements in public health and educational continuity.
The strategic opportunity to lead such a project belongs to companies with a vision for triple impact. Global players in water, energy, education tech, or the agri-food industry with ESG commitments will not only be able to offset their water footprint in stressed basins, but also align their brand with a compelling and measurable story. In a world where sustainability requires proof, this project delivers metrics, stories, and outcomes. Acting now means changing lives, building reputation, and demonstrating that every drop counts.
This combination of factors makes Manga Primary School a clear case of structural water exclusion, where the right to safe water—and by extension, the rights to education, health, and gender equality—are being undermined by solvable material conditions. The project provides a technically sound, planned, and traceable response.
• Waterborne diseases: Daily exposure to untreated water has resulted in repeated cases of cholera, typhoid fever, acute diarrhea, and intestinal parasites, impacting students’ health, development, and academic performance.
• School dropout and absenteeism: Girls frequently miss school during menstruation due to inadequate hygiene conditions, with many eventually dropping out.
• Impact on teachers: The lack of water also affects teachers’ basic hygiene, the cleanliness of school spaces, food preparation, and management of common areas, resulting in a precarious learning environment not conducive to quality education.
In response to the complete lack of safe water access at Manga Primary School, the project proposes an integrated technical solution tailored to the structural vulnerabilities of the rural school environment. The intervention uses appropriate, efficient, and low-maintenance technologies, aligned with the principles of WASH Benefit Accounting (WASH BA) under the VWBA 2.0 framework, ensuring quantifiable, additional, traceable, and permanent water benefits.
The core of the project involves the installation of a permanent water source through the drilling of a deep borehole equipped with a solar-powered pump, providing a clean and autonomous water supply without reliance on the power grid or fossil fuels. The system will be complemented by rainwater harvesting infrastructure, adapted to the school’s physical conditions and rainfall patterns, enhancing water availability throughout the year.
To ensure that the water delivered meets national and international drinking standards, low-maintenance chlorination systems and basic water quality monitoring protocols will be installed, verifying indicators such as turbidity and residual chlorine. These measures ensure the water is safe even in decentralized operational settings.
The water benefit will be calculated using the formula defined in Appendix A-3 of VWBA 2.0, which estimates the additional volume of safe water provided by the project compared to the baseline condition. All data will be validated by an independent external auditor, ensuring methodological rigor and transparency.
SDG 1 – No poverty: Safe water access reduces household healthcare expenses and time spent fetching water, freeing resources and time for education and productivity.
SDG 3 – Good health and well-being: Access to drinking water reduces waterborne diseases such as cholera, diarrhea, and typhoid, particularly in children.
SDG 4 – Quality education: Improves school attendance, retention, and learning conditions—especially for girls—by ensuring a safe and dignified environment.
SDG 5 – Gender equality: Reduces barriers girls face in attending school regularly, improving participation and long-term educational outcomes.
SDG 6 – Clean water and sanitation: Core of the project: ensures equitable, continuous, and safe access to drinking water with validated WASH BA methodology.
SDG 7 – Affordable and clean energy: The project incorporates solar-powered pumping systems, encouraging clean energy use.
SDG 9 – Industry, innovation and infrastructure: Introduces socially innovative and technically adapted water infrastructure for rural schools.
SDG 10 – Reduced inequalities: Prioritizes underserved rural communities, helping to close urban-rural gaps in water access.
SDG 11 – Sustainable cities and communities: Strengthens basic rural infrastructure, contributing to community resilience and sustainability.
SDG 13 – Climate action: Enhances climate resilience through sustainable technologies such as solar pumping and rainwater harvesting.
SDG 17 – Partnerships for the goals: Fosters collaboration among the school community, technical actors, and companies with ESG commitments for shared water impact.
The project implementation is built on a clear governance structure focused on measurable outcomes and benefit traceability. Although still under design, it is expected to be executed through a cooperative model involving technical, educational, and community stakeholders. The school and its committee will play a central role in day-to-day operation, basic maintenance, and reporting, while technical execution will be led by an experienced WASH organization. An external auditor will be engaged to verify annual performance indicators, water volumes delivered, and system functionality, all of which are necessary to validate water benefits under VWBA 2.0.
In terms of permanence and traceability, the water benefit generated will have an estimated minimum duration of five years, renewable depending on operational results and ongoing external validation. Results will be uploaded and tracked annually via platforms like Aqua Positive, enabling transparent and verifiable attribution of water benefits for future funders, without risk of double counting. The entire project will be backed by technical documentation, including baseline studies, validated metrics, field data, photographs, and operational statements.
Finally, the modular and adaptable design of the system enables replication in other rural schools within the county or nationwide and can be integrated into regional education infrastructure programs or corporate sustainability strategies.
This project emerges as a concrete response to a pressing and structural need: ensuring safe and sustainable access to drinking water in a rural school located in an area of high hydrological, climatic, and social vulnerability. Manga Primary School currently serves more than 180 students and lacks any reliable water source. This condition directly undermines student health, school attendance, academic performance, and overall well-being, especially for girls, whose continued enrollment is often compromised due to inadequate hygiene conditions.
In this context, the project proposes a low-impact, technically robust water solution, centered on the installation of an autonomous supply system that combines borehole drilling with solar pumping and rainwater harvesting. This infrastructure will provide continuous access to safe water, reducing exposure to unsafe sources and improving the school’s overall learning environment.
The proposal follows the principles and requirements of the WASH Benefit Accounting (WASH BA) methodology, as defined in VWBA 2.0. Specifically, the Appendix Volume Provided method will be used to calculate the water benefit, based on the additional volume of safe water provided compared to the pre-project condition. This benefit will be conservatively estimated, externally validated, and recorded in traceability platforms like Aqua Positive, enabling use by companies or organizations seeking to offset their water footprint under recognized frameworks such as Science-Based Targets for Water, CDP Water Disclosure, or ESRS E3.
Given the school and community’s lack of resources to finance this infrastructure, the project is actively seeking external investment, especially from private sector actors committed to sustainability, water stewardship, and ESG criteria. This investment would not only generate tangible improvements for an underserved population but also produce traceable and auditable metrics for corporate water impact reporting. The project supports multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDGs 6, 3, 4, 10, 13, and 17, among others.
This initiative offers a concrete opportunity for positive impact: each cubic meter of safe water delivered will be measured, attributed, and transparently reported; each student remaining in school will have better conditions for learning; and each participating actor will be able to document their contribution with verified evidence. With a technically solid, locally appropriate design and full alignment with global sustainability frameworks, this project transforms a basic unmet need into a replicable model of climate action and water justice.
