The importance of clean drinking water cannot be underestimated. Many of us who have never lacked it could easily take this for granted but when you think of areas where residents share water sources with livestock and sometimes even wild animals for lack of an alternative, then you get the idea just how bad things are in these areas.
The effects of unclean water consumption are felt across all ages. Yet there is a demographic that is affected more by this. They are the school going children. Many children in water scarce areas are mostly absent in school, due to water borne illnesses, such as diarrhea, typhoid and cholera among others. This in turn causes lack of concentration in class, which leads to poor performance. Some healthy children still skip classes to accompany their mothers to boreholes in search of the life giving liquid- water.
The problem is not only in deep rural areas as one may imagine, but also in some urban areas where water pipes supplying some estates and slum areas are contaminated with dirty water.
P&G, in partnership with World Vision, has committed to provide clean drinking-water to twelve counties across Kenya in an initiative that will see P&G invest Ksh 50 million to purify water, with World Vision as one of the implementation partner. P&G has realized that they cannot reach everyone especially deep in rural areas without the help of far reaching partners like World Vision.
P&G has been running the P&G’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) in Kenya for over 10 years now and this partnership is a way of ensuring that the benefits of clean water reach even more people. The Children’s Safe Drinking Water program uses water purification sachets by P&G that are designed to purify even very contaminated water to make it safe for drinking even by WHO standards.
The purification process works through an easy to use powder water treatment branded- P&G Purifier of Water sachets. Each 4 grams’ powder sachet treats and purifies 10 liters of dirty water to WHO standards. The procedure is as simple- pouring the solution into the water, stirring, leaving it to settle and sieving with a clean cloth for 30 minutes. The sachets can be used anywhere at any time to clean contaminated water.
This partnership is meant to reduce water borne diseases mostly among children. Counties that will benefit from the program are Makueni, Machakos, Kitui, Kajiado, Taita Taveta, Narok, Kisumu, Isiolo, Marsabit, Elgeyo Marakwet, Baringo and Homa Bay. The program will give close to 75,000 people training on water treatment and storage to improve sanitation and hygiene awareness.
The initiative will work with about 120 community health workers who will train beneficiaries on water treatment using P&G Purifier of Water sachets as well as hygiene practices.