For many low-income communities, water sources are usually far from their homes, and it typically falls to women and girls to spend much of their time and energy fetching water, a task which often exposes them to safety risks and leaves them vulnerable to attacks when collecting water from distant areas, domestic violence over the amount of water collected, and fights over scarce water supply (violence against women). Around a third of schools in these communities have no safe water supply leaving children dehydrated and less able to concentrate. The time to collect water then comes at the expense of education, income generating activities, cultural/political involvement, rest and recreation. This water work is also largely unpaid household work based on patriarchal gender norms and often related to domestic work, such as laundry, cooking and childcare. For adolescent girls, the presence of a safe water supply and clean, functioning, private sanitation facilities can be the difference between dropping out of school and getting an education.
Further to this, more than half of the population in these communities does not have access to adequate or safe sanitation forcing people to use inadequate communal latrines or to practice open defecation. Women and girls often have to wait until the cover of darkness so they can find a place to go to the toilet outside and have often reported to feel a danger for their security whilst journeying to toilets particularly at night.

Overall Objectives of the Binti Water and Sanitation Programme (WASH)

• Make water safely attainable and affordable for at least 12 hours a day in low income communities.

• To ensure educational progression of girls, high female-to-male enrolment ratios, and reduced repetition and drop-out ratios by providing adequate sanitation facilities in schools as Boys and girls are able to more fully participate in school when there is improved access to water and sanitation.

• Significantly Improve productivity, increase student attendance, reduce hygiene-related disease and contribute to dignity and gender equality in low income communities through gender-sensitive approaches to water and sanitation.

• To evaluate the severity of challenges related to lack of adequate water and sanitation facilities and come up with sustainable solutions and encourage inter-sectoral collaboration and cooperation between schools, communities and different levels of government as well as community leadership and accountability.