Contributors: Amna Shaddad, Amélie Courcaud, Lucie Leclert
Photo Credits: Mugtaba Elkhalil – SRCS WASH Officer North Kordofan, April 2021
In the North Kordofan State of Sudan, the Swiss Red Cross (SRC) supports 19 schools to become Blue Schools.
School gardens and environmentally friendly activities require a reliable access to water. However, in this part of the word, there is not even enough water for children to drink and for hygiene purpose. Out of the 19 schools, only five have existing water infrastructure (hand pump boreholes), all of which need some form of rehabilitation. The 14 other schools will be equipped with new water hand pumps, which will be built during the last quarter of 2021 (after the rainy season).
The starting point of the SRC Blue Schools interventions has therefore been on ensuring a reliable access to water through the rehabilitation of existing water supply systems.
To build local capacity on operation and management (O&M), SRC organized trainings for two hand pump mechanics per village (10 in total), ensuring that women also get the opportunity to be trained. Hand-pumps mechanics were selected by the communities themselves. The repairs of the pumps in the five schools were done as part of this training. The training also focused on introducing the basics of regular maintenance.
In Albirika Al Medina boys school for example, the SRC team, along with technicians from the Water Cooperation of the State Authority, carried out repairs for the school’s hand pump and trained two community members, a man named Ahmad Mohamad and a woman named Abeer Alsideg, as hand pump mechanics. Abeer is 26 years old and lives with her family. She is unmarried and this is the first time that she participates in a technical training. She is glad to have volunteered and to have been selected by the community for this role. She states:
“Having done the training, now I have a good theoretical knowledge of how to diagnose hand pump problems. But a one-day training is not quite enough to be able to put everything into practice.”
Ahmad is 31 years old and lives in the village with his family. He works as a miller and already has some mechanical experience. Ahmed explains:
“I have some mechanical know-how, but I am happy to have received this training which has increased my skills.”
Both Abeer and Ahmed will be supported by the project team in their roles as handpump mechanics through regular supervision and with a hand pump tool kit.
In another village, the trained hand-pump mechanisms are a woman named Daffa Allah Ahmad and a man named Adil Foda Ali. Daffa Allah says:
“I am happy to be one of the trained hand-pump mechanics so that I can support my village with hand pump maintenance when it is broken.”
Adil states:
“I have always tried to assist in hand pumps repairs in the past, but I did not know all the parts nor how to diagnose the faults. This training has clarified a lot for me.”
The hand pump rehabilitations in North Kordofan are only the first steps of a long-term project. With the tireless dedication of the Sudanese Red Crescent Society (SRCS) team, the schools expressed a desire for WASH support: “The schools were grateful, they asked for support as many of them are lacking latrines and hand washing facilities. They also asked if we could help provide sensitization on handwashing for the teachers and students’’, said Bashir Shouyeb, a member of the SRCS’ local unit. Support to initiate school gardens is also always welcome, as it is fully part of the Sudan educational habits.
At El Obeid, on April 26th, 2021