Global Grant for India
RC Fremantle President Graeme Thygesin visited us recently to talk about the Global Grant project his Club is hosting in India, and Applecross is supporting - the Mandurai School Toilet Block Project. (Mandurai is a city in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu in southern India.)Mandurai School Toilet Block? Surely they could come up with a better name - my first thought. But as Graeme went on to explain the “Why”, it seems the current toilets were actually stopping kids from attending or staying at school.
The school was established in 1993, and services students from a number of remote villages. Most families live on subsistence incomes.
There are 800 students in this school. There are more girls than boys, but the girls are leaving the school because of its toilet facilities. There are only 5 toilets, colloquially know as ‘long drop toilets’ - you get the picture without needing the picture! Only 5 toilets for 800 students AND their teachers.
So the project for a new toilet block should and probably will reverse the early departure of girls and answer the prayers of the teachers for new separate toilets for them.
The plan is to build 20 modern toilets for girls and women teachers, plus 10 modern toilets for boys and male teachers. It includes a Reverse Osmosis plant to provide clean drinking water. Currently they only have bore water to drink, and even though they can buy bottled water for USD 10 cents, these are poor families remember.
The project also proposes upgrading the school computer lab - it currently has 6 computers for 800 students. The plan provides for 50 new desktop computers, computer furniture, printers and projectors. All the more reason to stay at school, especially if they can get more toilets, new toilets!
So maybe the Toilet Block project is a very appropriate name!