Mtitu Primary School is located in Kilolo district, Iringa, Tanzania. The school has an enrollment of 515 students (278 girls/237 boys) and 11 teacher/staff members. As with many villages and schools in Iringa, the lack of safe water for Mtitu School is a major problem.
Currently, the school depends on harvesting rainwater during the rainy season. The rest of the year, students are expected to fetch water, several times per day, from streams or a hand dug well almost 5 km's away. The streams around the village are shared with livestock and very polluted. Students typically end up spending more time fetching water and recovering from waterborne illness than they do studying, leading to poor performance on their exams. The school desperately needs access to safe water in order to meet their needs for drinking, washing hands, cooking and cleaning.
The overall objective of this project is to provide access to clean water for the students at Mtitu Primary School. Our implementing partner, St. Paul Partners (SSP), will install a borehole well located directly on the school compound. This will ensure students have access to enough safe water which will lead to more time in the classroom studying. Access to safe water will also have significant impact on the health of the students, teachers and neighbors around the village.
