World Water Day: Highlighting Safe Water Access for Rohingya Refugees

On March 22, 2024, Rohingya and Bangladeshi host communities in and around Kutupalong Refugee Camp, Bangladesh, marked World Water Day with creativity and enthusiasm. Ensuring access to adequate safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) is an ongoing challenge in these high-density communities, particularly during the dry season. World Water Day activities highlight the essential role of community engagement and cooperation in solving water challenges.

Between March and June, there is almost no rainfall in Kutupalong Refugee Camp and across Bangladesh. As groundwater and reservoir levels drop, refugee families struggle to meet their basic water needs. They face long walks and long queues to get safe drinking water, and water availability at toilets and bathing stations can become unreliable.

In these conditions, the work of community-based WASH workers supported by Community Partners International is vital.

During 2023, these workers repaired and maintained more than 150 water points each month, ensuring that 98% remained in working order all year round. They installed 55 new latrines, bathing stations, and waste disposal points and repaired and maintained more than 160 of these sanitation facilities each month, ensuring that 96% remained functional.

To ensure water safety, they tested water quality more than 4,000 times at households and water sources and distributed over 100,000 water purification tablets. To raise awareness of water safety, hygiene, and sanitation, they carried out more than 43,000 household education sessions and distributed more than 2,500 hygiene kits and nearly 50,000 packs of soap to refugee families in their catchment areas.

On World Water Day, these WASH workers joined colleagues and the community to highlight the importance of safe water, sanitation, and hygiene. Activities included World Water Day parades, WASH facility model-making, children’s art competitions, awareness sessions, and community awards for well-managed neighborhood tap stands.

WASH workers supported by Community Partners International crafted 25 miniature WASH facility models, including toilets, bathing and handwashing stations, tap stands, tube wells, rainwater harvesting systems, and waste disposal points. These were combined into miniature WASH blocks and displayed with educational posters at World Water Day events. WASH workers also built shelves with a “W” design to display the models.

Community Partners International also sponsored children’s art competitions on water, sanitation, and hygiene themes. Forty-five children living in the camps aged between 10 and 15 participated and drew pictures focused on safe water. Winners and runners-up received prizes, and all participants received congratulations.

During World Water Day, hygiene promotion workers supported by Community Partners International conducted about 180 awareness sessions attended by more than 3,500 people. The workers shared messages about water safety, contamination, safe storage, and prevention of water wastage.

Awards were also presented to community user groups for the best-kept tap stands in their neighborhood. The judges assessed several criteria: well-managed water collection schedules, tap stand and water container cleanliness, safe water storage, and avoiding water wastage. The winning user groups received prizes for their efforts.

While access to safe water, good hygiene, and sanitation remains an ongoing challenge in Kutupalong Refugee Camp, World Water Day activities highlighted the power of community engagement and involvement in securing adequate safe water supplies for all.