There was an exchange visit by Ethiopia WASH Alliance (EWA) to the Kenya WASH Alliance (KWA) program from 12-16 November 2012 to learn from the experiences how the alliances are working together in general and specifically on the theme Community Let Total Sanitation (CLTS) and School WASH, which is called School Led Total Sanitation in the case of Kenya.

It was a pleasant surprise for our team to meet Tobias in the airport, since we were expecting someone with our names or ‘EWA’ written on a piece of paper to say welcome and take us to the place we are staying.

The visit started with a short morning discussion in the AMREF office at Nairobi, the host for the KWA, where we met Jorje and Daniel (the two senior WASH persons in AMREF Kenya). In the afternoon, the team traveled to Kajiado to meet all alliance members of the KWA and attend brief presentations of their organizational profile and the activities they are doing in relation to KWA program.

The actual field visit started at the second day. We visited a village in CLTS and had a brief discussion with IWRM trainees. The next days the team continued to see different relevant sites at the community level and in the schools. The team had also made discussions with different households that built latrines after CLTS was triggered and the benefits they have got. The same holds true for schools, which the visiting team inspired by the tasks the school WASH clubs are doing in their school to convey the lesson to other students and in the surrounding communities working as the change agent.

The team learned a lot of lessons and we shared our own experiences too, which was very encouraging. In the future we will continue sharing lessons and experiences that support program implementation. Finally, as you go to the community in Kenya, it reminds me saying ‘Ham Jampo’, which means how you are.

For more information about the joint activities of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance, have a look at the project page.

Please also read this related blog written by Solomon Kebede, Media and Communications Officer at RiPPLE.

Tamene Chaka, Country Coordinator of the Ethiopia WASH Alliance