Conclusion of School Latrines Project – Mali

This project has been completed under the direction of Peace Corps Volunteer Zac Mason. To read about the beginning of this project, CLICK HERE.

According to Zac:

Tounto is a settlement of some 4,000 people who are mostly simple millet farmers. They have a market, a small clinic, a primary school, and the recently built secondary school.

75 percent of all of the students at this school come down with diarrhea over the course of the year, and at least 65 percent come down with full-blown dysentery.

The project was to build sanitary latrines and handwashing stations at the Tounto Secondaire Cycle.

Zac reports:

Exceeding all expectations, we have three latrines – one for boys, one for girls, and one for teachers. And we have a barrel with a spigot that the students are going to fill with water so that they can wash their hands.

The women will provide handmade soap, and the students and adults of Tounto will be responsible for cleaning and maintaining the latrines.

Project funds were used to buy cement and other construction materials. Secondaire Cycle student body collected sand, gravel, gravel and rocks.

Brick masons made the bricks, and the Tounto Youth Association made up of young men in their teens and twenties, provided the bulk of the labor.

This project is estimated to serve 200 people. It will have a great effect on the school and community, in that it will eliminate the epidemiological hazards of open defecation. It will have the greatest effect on schoolgirls, in that it will eliminate the shame of exposing themselves to perform their bodily functions, and thereby make it easier for them to remain in school.

Our thanks go to Zac, for implementing the project despite the difficulties, and to all of the participants who made it possible.

We again wish to thank The Soneva SLOW LIFE Trust for providing funding for this project.Tounto School Latrines Project - Mali