Through community visits, Cova’s Circuit Rider program works specifically alongside water boards to strengthen the systems that deliver safe water. Through school visits, Cova’s WASH coordinator, Oneida, reaches an audience that Circuit Riders often do not: children, teachers, and parents. Her lessons help students understand the connection between water, hygiene, health, and their community’s water system. Sometimes through demonstration, sometimes through lessons, and sometimes through colorful googly-eyed water droplet art projects.

Together, the two programs create the conditions for lasting behavior change.

When Oneida arrives at a school, the students know her.

She visits every month. They know she will spend time in their classrooms. They know she will talk about safe water, hygiene, and healthy habits. And they know there will be activities!

Children are powerful messengers. They are determined question-askers and enthusiastic absorbers of ideas. They bring what they learn home to their families. They remind parents and siblings (in the not-so-subtle way that young people have) about the value of safe water. In this signature way of schoolchildren, lessons taught in the classroom often extend far beyond the school grounds.

While Oneida’s at a school, the students know she will meet with teachers and parents. She will invite volunteers to help check chlorine levels in the water. She will enlist little learners to demonstrate proper handwashing. And they know that next month, she will return and do it again.

And not because the lessons will be forgotten, but because consistency requires reinforcement. While a chlorinator can be installed in a day, building habits takes much longer.

When Oneida leaves a school, she documents her activities and her observations, what was accomplished and what comes next. The final two questions on her assessment form point to the future: Basic Needs to Improve Sanitation and Training Required by Students. Each visit identifies not only what has been accomplished, but what remains to be learned, improved, and strengthened.

Those final questions are, in many ways, the reason she returns.