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St. Barnabas High in Lesotho To Have Enough Water—At Last!
Posted by Hlengiwe Zwane on 09 August 2020, 12:10 SAST
During the FutureLife-Now! baseline survey that was conducted in the pilot schools in Lesotho, a scan of their infrastructure showed that all the schools were in dire need of improvement to their water, sanitation and hygiene facilities. For example, St. Barnabas High, a school with an enrolment of 670 learners, 21 teachers and 19 non-academic staff, has, for the last 18 years, been negatively affected by the shortage of water and in recent years has had no running water at all.
The Ministry of Education and the British government had provided JoJo tanks to store water for day-to-day activities, but during the severe drought the borehole dried up. The lack of water posed a real threat to the school’s continued operations, which included various environmentally friendly agricultural initiatives.
Through the climate change component of the FutureLife-Now programme, five kilometres of pipes were purchased, allowing the school to draw water from the Metolong Dam Water Supply Programme. So, with the reopening of schools after the COVID-19 lockdown, the school is able to provide running water for learners to wash their hands, an important way to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and generally make the school a safer, healthier environment and allow youth to continue implementing environmentally friendly initiatives.
