Improving Clean Water Practices through Community Engagement in Remote Cocoa-Farming Villages of São Tomé
Keywords:
clean water, WASH, São Tomé, cocoa-farming communities, waterborne disease, community engagementAbstract
Access to safe drinking water remains one of the most persistent and consequential development challenges facing rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in the small island developing state of São Tomé and Príncipe—where remote cocoa-farming villages combine geographic isolation, inadequate sanitation infrastructure, and heavy reliance on unprotected spring and river water—the burden of waterborne disease constitutes a preventable public health emergency. This community service study evaluates a six-month participatory water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) improvement programme implemented across thirteen remote cocoa-farming villages in the Lembá and Caué Districts of São Tomé Island, engaging 216 households. Using a single-group longitudinal design with baseline, three-month, and six-month measurements, the programme integrated waterborne disease education, household water treatment training, handwashing behaviour change, latrine construction, spring protection, and community WASH governance capacity building. Findings demonstrate statistically significant improvements in all ten WASH indicators measured, including a 64.6 percentage-point increase in household water treatment practices and a 48.7 percentage-point reduction in E. coli-positive household water samples. These results advance contextually grounded evidence for community-led WASH improvement in remote agricultural island communities.
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