The lack of access to safe drinking water in rural school settings represents one of the most significant barriers to educational equity, public health, and human development in regions such as Nyamira, Kenya. At Manga Primary School, this situation directly limits the right to education—especially for girls—and exposes both students and teachers to severe health risks from consuming unsafe water.
This project was designed to respond to that urgent need through the implementation of an integrated and sustainable water solution, which includes the drilling of a borehole, solar-powered pumping, rainwater harvesting, and high-capacity storage. The entire system will be implemented under the standards of the WASH Benefit Accounting (WASH BA) approach, allowing for the quantification of the additional volume of safe water provided with full traceability, additionality, and verifiable permanence.
Due to the structural financial limitations of the school community and local government, the project is currently in an active search for funding, targeting companies and organizations with a sustainability vision that wish to compensate for their water footprint through socially impactful investments.
This type of intervention allows not only for the fulfillment of corporate water replenishment commitments but also for the integration of environmental metrics with tangible outcomes in equal opportunity, preventive health, inclusive education, and climate resilience. Moreover, the project meets the criteria for inclusion in international reporting frameworks such as Science-Based Targets for Water, CDP Water Disclosure, and ESRS E3, becoming an effective tool to strengthen ESG strategies with measurable and auditable impact.
Manga Primary School faces a critical situation regarding access to drinking water. Currently, it lacks any safe, consistent, or treated water source, forcing students and staff to rely on unprotected sources or walk long distances to collect small quantities of low-quality water.
The total absence of water infrastructure—no borehole, rainwater harvesting system, or storage tanks—exposes the entire school community to serious health risks. It also severely limits teaching activities, time in class, and student health, with frequent absences due to waterborne illnesses.
This situation disproportionately affects school-age girls, who face greater difficulties maintaining personal hygiene during menstruation, which exacerbates gender inequalities in education. The lack of privacy and basic hygiene conditions directly contributes to school dropout among girls, increased absenteeism, and reduced learning continuity during critical stages of development.
Structural causes:
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.
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