Designing a school water treatment and interactive education program in Kenya to enable future scale-up

Many small-scale public health efforts including those to improve water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) have not expanded beyond their initial scope. To improve the likelihood of scaling, the goal of this project led by the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH) was to design a small-scale innovative WASH project in three schools (the pilot) that was embedded within a larger-scale, multi-year program (AIDs Population and Health Integrated Assistance plus [APHIAplus]) focused on capacity-building to achieve integrated health delivery in Kenya. The innovative elements of the pilot included use of onsite electrochlorination and an interactive WASH curriculum that resulted in improved water quality and WASH knowledge at the schools. By aligning the pilot with the results framework of APHIAplus and utilizing a pre-existing partnership with schools, the integrated approach provided structure for implementation and an efficient use of resources. The pilot will be expanded to include 23 schools in 2013-2014.