This project has been completed under the direction of Peace Corps Volunteer Tom Reade.
To read about the beginning of the project, CLICK HERE.
The project was to create a facility to enable the students to practice good hygiene.
Tom reports:
We now have a real working shower/locker room at Michael the Brave School in Cazangic, and to boot, we have an indoor toilet.
The first phase of the project included some volunteers from the community coming in on various days to help gut the entire room. This took a lot longer than expected, as we did this in the middle of November-December when there was snow on the ground.
After, we gutted the room, we brought in more volunteers to help glue and tile the shower-rooms and then a plumber to help connect and run the whole system. This took almost a month as we had to run hot and cold water piping through 4 rooms and then out to the drainage canal that is about 300 feet away from the shower rooms.
While this was going on, we celebrated Hram on the day of the saint of the village. Typically, many of the people who were born in the village will come back for village day to help celebrate it. A doctor from Chisinau was one of the attendees and heard about our project to replace the shower system in the gym, and was “embarrassed” that foreigners were doing this work and not Moldovans, and so he donated $1,000 to add a small single bathroom into the same room.
For the price of one project, we have inspired Moldovans to take a more active role in their hometown, which will hopefully continue into the future.
The PTA is currently fundraising to purchase towels and soap for all the kids as communal supplies, and educating the students about the rules for the shower room.
The room could be prettier, but that will take time and more money and is something that should be done by the local community. Otherwise, the project was a total success.
We are grateful to Tom for completing this project, and to his friends and family for helping make it possible. You can see more about the results in the video below.
