About the project
In 2014, Kenya Red Cross Society with financial and technical support from British Red Cross society started a four year WASH in Kenya project which seeks to improve hygiene and sanitation practices and increase access to improved water and sanitation for 155,000 women, men, girls and boys in Bomet, Taita Taveta and Kilifi Counties (Bomet county data presented here).
The programme seeks to achieve:
- Increased awareness and understanding of health risks linked to unhygienic practices, resulting in behaviour change e.g. critical times for hand washing, safe disposal child faeces; knowledge of the causes/prevention of WASH-related diseases, safe water chain and open defecation contamination risks.
- Increased use of rehabilitated/new water infrastructure, improved water quality, reduced collection distances; increased demand for/use of latrines, reduced open defecation and reduced contamination risk.
- Enabled and strengthened communities, able to foster connections, engage and solicit support from local government in arrangements for on-going WASH operation and maintenance.
- Shared evidence-based experience and coordination between WASH actors
In order to achieve the programme ambitions, among many other things, there is need to understand household culture, values and attitudes towards latrine construction, the willingness and ability of households to construct and maintain latrines without any external assistance and to understand the impact of the Governments non-subsidy approach on sanitation. There is need to understand hygiene practices and what influences people to change behaviour. In terms of water, there is need to understand the strategies that have been taken to address issues of high non-revenue water, to understand household willingness to pay and to see how water reforms are operating in practice.
The targeted research will be undertaken to help address some of these questions. This will be combined with learning from routine monitoring and evaluations data and used on an on-going basis to inform decision making and provide a basis for learning and sharing at community, national and international levels.