Nepal

Due to poor water quality, lack of adequate water quantity, crude hygiene and insufficient sanitation, the urban poor are 130% more likely to contract diarrhea than their wealthier peers in the same city. It is no wonder, randomized water tests throughout the Kathmandu Valley of wells, municipal taps, and public fountains found more than 70% contaminated with eColi. Even when they can afford water, the urban poor of Kathmandu often pay more than 3 times the amount for their water that wealthier households pay. It is this reality—negative health impacts on children and inequitable pricing and delivery for the poor—that grounds and motivates Splash’s work.

Strategy

Nepal was our second country of focus after China, and our first with a 100% coverage model targeting a singular city. Our goal at present is to ensure sustainable WASH (Water, Sanitation & Hygiene) in schools projects in all 500 public schools in Kathmandu- schools serving the poorest children in the city.

Splash's safe water and hygiene programs are at our strongest in Nepal. Our work involving toilets (or more importantly in an urban context our work to ensure toilets are functional and clean) will begin in concert with the Nepali government in 2015. Through this partnership, we will build an ecology wherein every student attending government schools in Kathmandu has clean water, clean hands and clean toilets. We are presently on target to achieve this, by way of a strong local team, by 2019.

Last year, Splash-Nepal gained accreditation as a Nepali NGO (rather than as an arm of an international charity), one of the key steps toward the long range goal of converting the local charity into a social enterprise: a standalone economic engine without on-going funding from an international charity. Splash is planning for our exit in 2020.