WASH in School: Providing water to support comprehensive education for girls in Sissili

Thanks to the water point funded installed in December 2020 by UNICEF, the inhabitants of sector 3 of Léo have access to drinking water. The pump was originally installed for the students of the Collège Sainte Suzanne in Sector 3 and the girls’ hostel.

Ramatou Sawadogo, 18 years old, is pouring water on her plants on Monday morning before going to her school, which is located 2 kilometres from the hostel. “I really enjoy gardening and I grow onions, which will be used to cook for the household,” she says proudly. Her parents, also farmers in the village, did not have the financial resources to send Ramatou and her two younger brothers to school. UNICEF, through the financial support of the L’OCCITANE Foundation , has been funding the costs of education for Ramatou and 28 other vulnerable girls in Sissili since 2017.

In the girls’ hostel, each resident is introduced to gardening, in addition to formal schooling. However, because there was no water point near their homes, the girls had to fetch water some 5 kilometres away to water their plants until December 2020, when UNICEF Burkina Faso, with funding from the Spanish National Committee for UNICEF, built a water pump for the school.

Bernadine Kafando, 18, motherless, is one of the twenty-nine girls in the hostel in Sector 3 of Léo. Now in her exam class, she remembers that four years ago, when she was taking her very first exam she had to walk at least six kilometres every morning to fetch water before going to class: “But here I fetch water only fifty metres from the hostel. I fill a 25-litre container every day, which is enough for me to wash, drink and water my plants for a day,” says Bernadine.

At 9.45 a.m. the bell rings for the breaktime. It’s the hot seasons, and in small groups, the pupils head towards the water pump, where each one fills their water bottle. After the pupils are done, the inhabitants of the neighbourhood also come to the water pump to fetch water. The water pump therefore not only supports the students, but also the community at large.

In 2020 and despite the challenging security context and the COVID-19 pandemic, UNICEF’s WASH programme completed the construction of water points in 25 schools in Burkina Faso, benefiting 2,882 students (1,234 girls and 1,648 boys) and 111 teachers (36 women and 75 men). Each school also received a WASH kit to help students, teachers and academic staff keep their school environment clean and healthy.