The ‘Healthy Villages and Schools’ approach is a step-by-step process of village mobilisation that is supported by DRC’s Ministry of Public Health and UNICEF. Under the SWIFT programme, Oxfam is supporting Kasitu to implement the approach through local partner Centre de Promotion Socio Sanitaire (CEPROSSAN).

CEPROSSAN has rehabilitated Kasitu’s water source and capped it to provide safe, sustainable water. It has helped the community set up a water users’ committee, whose job it is now to maintain the spring, and a ‘healthy village’ committee to monitor and encourage progress. Four community motivators trained in hygiene awareness now visit each household to check that good hygiene behaviour is being practised. 

Residents have already noticed a fall in the incidence of sickness, leaving them with more time and energy to cultivate crops, and are using money that previously paid for clinic visits to fund school fees instead.