Ewan Robertson helps build new school latrines in Rwanda

Building a Future

Laying the foundations of new school latrines at Nkumbure School, Nyamagabe District. (Photo: James Kiyimba, WaterAid)

Clean water, decent toilets, good hygiene. 

Three normal things. Yet in Rwanda, 5 million people do not have clean water. 

One in three people do not have a decent toilet and over 900 children under five die each year from diarrhoea. 

Thanks to funding from the Scottish Government, WaterAid Scotland is working to improve health and sanitation in vulnerable schools and communities in the Southern Province of Rwanda by 2022, as part of the Nyamagabe Alba Project.

In January 2018 Scottish Water's Ewan Roberston (pictured above, centre) joined John Mooney of the Scottish Government and Jean Lambert Sebareze from WaterAid Rwanda as part of a team who worked to help build new latrines at a school in Nyamagabe district. 

Over the next four years, our fundraising will build sanitation blocks, menstrual hygiene management rooms and rain water harvesting tanks in ten schools in the Nyamagabe District of Rwanda as part of this project. 

We will help to change normal for good. 

To find out more about the wider work in this area visit WaterAid in Rwanda.

Menstrual Hygiene Management

Louise Bannerman talks to Rwandan schoolgirls about menstrual hygiene

Education with Dignity

Scottish Water's Louise Bannerman visited Rwanda and talked with a group of schoolgirls about their experiences. (Photo: James Kiyimba, WaterAid)

To manage menstruation hygienically and with dignity, it's essential that women and girls have access to clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene.

Scottish Water employee Louise Bannerman, who talked periods with a group of schoolgirls during her visit to Rwanda, said: "One of the key issues of girls being on their period in schools is embarrassment. Often they will stay at home.”

To learn more about how WaterAid are tackling this issue visit menstrual hygiene matters.