Like the case in most rural areas of the country, the community OSRA’s operation areas lack basic services needed to the betterment of their livelihoods. Water supply and sanitation facilities, which are vital for protecting the environment, improving health, improving the quality of education in schools, reduce women and children’s burden and alleviation of poverty is one of the critical problems of the communities and schools in the target areas.

The general objective of the project is, therefore, to contribute to the improvement of the living situation of community members in the intervention areas through provision of water supply and sanitation for both communities and school children.

The majority of the people rely on surface water such as small streams and unprotected traditional hand dug wells, which are not potable to get water for human and animal consumption. Particularly, women and children who assume the responsibility of fetching water is the most affected portion of the community due to lack of these facilities. They have to travel long distance to fetch un potable water for household consumption. As a result, the communities are exposed to water borne diseases endangering their health status.

The general objective of the WASH program is to contribute to the improvement of the living situation of the people in the intervention areas through provision of water supply and sanitation facilities, and hygiene education for both communities and school children.

To overcome the problems related to water supply and sanitation, OSRA has been implementing community based water supply sanitation and hygiene education projects. The projects have three main components: development of safe water supply sources, provision of sanitation facilities, and hygiene and sanitation education.To address the water supply problems in the rural areas, OSRA has promoted deep and shallow wells and spring development and thereby enhanced access to clean water supply mainly for human and livestock consumption. Along with the water supply schemes, OSRA establishes Water and Sanitation Committee (WATSAN committee) and community water technicians who are elected by the target communities. While the WATSAN committees are responsible to manage the overall operation of the water supply and sanitation facilities, the community technicians are responsible to perform operation and maintenance of the facilities.

This would ensure the sustainability of the facilities.  So far, OSRA has developed over 84 deep and shallow wells and 25 springs, which are giving service mainly for human consumption in three different zones and six districts benefiting more than 132,000 rural community members.

OSRA has integrated sanitation and hygiene education to its water supply schemes in all intervention areas.  Based on this, it promotes community washing basins and shower rooms both for men and women where the community members wash their cloths and take bath in their respective villages. In addition to this, hygiene education is given to the community to bring about behavioral change in both personal and environmental hygiene among the community.

This is being practiced through trained community based hygiene education communicators per schemes which are role models for the community as far as hygiene and sanitation is concerned. Various participatory hygiene and sanitation promotion approaches such as participatory hygiene and sanitation transformation (PHAST) and community led total sanitation (CLTS) to improve the knowledge and practice of the target communities.

Oromo Self Reliance Association is also promoting school based water supply, sanitation and hygiene education projects for rural schools to solve the problems of clean water supply and sanitation and hygiene. The main purpose of the project is  to create healthy learning, teaching and working environment in schools facing the problem of clean water supply and sanitation. The specific objectives of school WASH are: create access to safe water sources for school communities, improve hygiene and sanitation practices of schools and community through provision of child and gender friendly sanitation facilities (latrines, urinals, wash rooms, hand washing facilities, etc), and build the capacity of schools and communities to operate, manage and sustain their water and sanitation facilities.

School based WASH projects create access to clean water supply for both students and teachers and especially benefits girls  by providing clean water and sanitation facility like wash rooms used for sanitation purposes during their menstrual cycles. This helps to increase girls’ school enrollment rate as well as decreasing school dropout rate due to lack of clean water and sanitation facilities. 

School WASH projects use participatory approaches like School Led Total Sanitation (SLTS) and school health clubs which are instrumental to conduct community outreach activities to promote hygiene and sanitation activities within communities.