St. Francis School for the Blind Latrine & Water Storage Project – Uganda

Location
Madera, Soroti, Teso, Uganda

Community Description
Madera is a medium-sized village located 5 km NE of Soroti Town, Soroti District, Teso sub-region, Uganda.

St. Francis School for the Blind was established in 1983 as a private school. In that same year, the school received official government-aided status. It was founded by the Little Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi in order to provide visually challenged students with formal O-level and A-level education.

St. Francis is a mixed boarding school for both boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 24. In 2008, the school established Advanced level teaching. The first students sat for the Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE) examinations in 2009.

The school’s mission is “To assist children with visual impairment disabilities regardless of tribe, religion, or sex, by providing them with specialized secondary education along with vocational and life skills for future community placement.” The motto is “Disability is not inability!

Project Description
This project is to renovate the latrines and install a rainwater harvesting tank at the school.

The work on the latrines will be at a newly-developed site, as the old site contains crumbling buildings, bad infrastructure and not enough space. The new site requires proper bathroom and bathing facilities.

As of now, the new site has a latrine building. However, it needs upgrades and add-ons before the visually-impaired students can use it.

The school administration and staff have decided the following work needs to be done:

  • Change the latrine cisterns from rusted metal to long-lasting ceramic models.
  • Install a rainwater harvesting tank with hand pump which can be used as a back-up water source in times of municipal water shortage (which happens quite often).

The school has the tank but it needs to be repainted. The school also plans to use leftover materials from other construction projects to build the concrete slab upon which the tank will sit.

Appropriate Projects funds will be used to repaint the tank, buy a hand pump, and replace the metal cisterns with ceramic ones.

The work will be done by construction laborers who already live and work on the school property. School staff will provide additional assistance, and students will help, within their level of visual impairment.

The school is planning follow-up projects for the future, including a handwashing station outside of the latrines and handrails in the latrines for use by the visually-impaired students.

A series of life skills lessons based on health and hygiene will be presented.

Project Impact
Approximately 250 community members will benefit from the project, including 90 visually-impaired students, 30 staff, 40 local teachers from neighboring schools who will be using the facilities every week, and 10 visitors per day.

Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Chelsea Milko

Comments
This project provides a sanitary latrine and a stand-by water supply for the use of the students, staff, and visitors. It will improve the health and well-being of the community members who regularly use the facilities.

Dollar Amount of Project
$555.000

Donations Collected to Date
$555.00

Dollar Amount Needed

$0.00 – This project has been fully funded, through the generosity of CannedWater4Kids.

We encourage others to continue to donate using the Donate button below, and we will notify Peace Corps Volunteer Chelsea Milko of your donation. Additional funds will be used to fund the next project by Chelsea and/or those other PCVs in the country of service.

This project has been finished. To read about the conclusion of the project, CLICK HERE.