Location
Massinga, District of Massinga, Inhambane Province, Mozambique
Community Description
Massinga is a busy district capital located along the national highway of Mozambique. The people of Massinga are widely affected by problems including HIV, malaria, and difficult access to water.
The community directly involved is a primary school of 1,500 students (grades 1-6), located near the district hospital. The water source for the entire school is an electric p
ump located 500 m downhill. This distance makes it difficult to have sufficient water available for cleaning the bathrooms.
For these students there are 2 brick bathrooms for urinating and 3 latrines.
Each bathroom is further separated by a one brick high barrier to create a false sense of privacy. These brick barriers and the wall barrier between the bathrooms each have a 1 inch hole for drainage.
The current problems with this bathroom system are the following: 1) no water access, 2) ineffective waste drainage system, and 3) waste runs outside into the open air. These factors combine to create an unhygienic, unpleasant environment where cleaning is difficult, and children prefer using the outside.
Project Description
This project will provide running water for the 2 bathrooms, improve the drainage between and out of the bathrooms, and install a faucet and a handwashing station consisting of ‘tippy-taps.’ The faucet can be used for additional cleaning of the bathrooms or other water needs of the school.
Each bathroom will have a tube coming down from the wall that will wash away urine in the improved trough to be in place. The main tube will be connected to a source 42 m slightly uphill from the bathrooms (as decided by the city water company).
The main water pipe will be parted into two systems, one being a water faucet and the other controlling the water flow to the pipes in the bathrooms. When the lever is turned on, water will run into both the bathrooms at once and down to the storage containers.
The 1 in. tube leading out of the bathrooms onto the ground will be modified by adding a minimum 2 in. wide tube emptying into a storage/filtration containment. This will be a minimum 1 ½ m x 1 ½ m, lined with ‘bottle bricks’ (as used by ECO-TEC solutions), and the bottom of this pit will be lined with rocks.
The Peace Corps Volunteer will be teaching the bottle brick construction method to a local contractor as well as interested faculty members for the construction. The children have already involved themselves by bringing in ½-liter bottles to school. These bottles will be filled with sand by the kids and used as bricks instead of cement bricks.
Water Charity funding will be used for the various tubes and connectors needed, a complete faucet tap, cement needed to seal the bottle bricks together, cement needed to make an improved gutter structure in the bathrooms, and a handwashing station.
The plumbing will be done by the city water company.
After construction, the facilities will be cleaned and water bills paid for by the school.
During and after the construction, lessons will be given involving hygiene, why it is important, and why the reuse of plastic trash is important (i.e. how it harms the environment). These will be given by the teachers and local peer educators from the district hospital.
Project Impact
1,500 students will benefit from the project.
Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Alicia Portillo
Comments
This is an effective project to bring water to the school and utilize it for regular and effective sanitation. It has widespread school and community support, and it creates an interest in proper hygiene which will students will bring back to their homes.
Dollar Amount of Project
$450.00
Donations Collected to Date
$450.00
Dollar Amount Needed
$0.00 – This project has been fully funded through the generosity of Melissa Thompson, of Minneapolis, MN, USA.
We encourage others to continue to donate using the Donate button below, and we will notify Peace Corps Volunteer Alician Portillo of your donation. Additional funds will be used to fund the next project by Alicia 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.