Providing families in Mozambique with clean water and adequate sanitation

More than 2.6 billion people – that’s 40 per cent of the world’s population – still lack access to safe water and adequate sanitation. As a result, thousands of children die every day from diarrhoea and other water-, sanitation- and hygiene-related diseases.

In Mozambique, unsafe water and sanitation leads to the deaths of more than 50 children every day. The country has one of the highest child mortality rates in the world with 246 out of every 1,000 children dying within their first five years of life.

Soccer Aid 2006 funds have supported:

• The acceleration of water, sanitation and hygiene education in primary schools, in line with the Country Action Plan which aims to provide water and sanitation to 220 primary schools in seven districts over three years.

(This plan includes the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Programme which promotes improvements in schools such as adding separate sanitation facilities for girls and boys and health screening. This means more children, boys and girls, will attend, and stay at, school. UNICEF is working with Water Aid and Action Aid in two key regions, the Provinces of Zambezia and Maputo).

• The drilling of mechanical boreholes and the provision of Play Pumps* for five primary schools in Maputo province, providing water to over 9,000 students and local communities.
• The drilling of a further 33 boreholes equipped with 13 hand pumps and 20 solar pumps benefiting 27,679 students and 19,000 people from communities surrounding schools in rural areas of Maputo.
• The provision of materials and solar pumping equipment for a further 50 boreholes in Zambezia.
• Hygiene education (teaching the importance of hand-washing and the correct use of sanitation facilities) in 128 schools and 73 sanitation clubs for over 1,000 children and 73 teachers.
• The establishment of school/community water and sanitation management committees to promote hygiene education and the operation and maintenance of the new sanitation facilities.

Ongoing work includes:

• The construction of 19 wells which will benefit over 5,000 students and 4,750 people from surrounding communities in isolated rural areas.
• The construction of 43 sanitation facilities, including latrines, flushing toilets and hand-washing facilities providing separate sanitation facilities for girls, boys and teachers, are under construction in 17 schools.

*A Play Pump is a water pump which doubles as a merry-go-round for children. The action of children playing on the merry-go-round pumps water into a tank so adults and children can access the water easily.

See how these projects have made a difference:

Read how Soccer Aid helped Catangala Primary School

Read Lijeira’s story

Watch a film of UNICEF supporter Paul Bettany talking about the need for water and adequate sanitation facilities in Mozambique.

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