Report of the Toilet Construction Project at CSI Mint School at Kondithope, Chennai

CSI Rajagopal Mint Middle School at Kondithope, Chennai has approached Asha Frankfurt for helping them improve the toilets in their school as well as the Kitchen. Asha Frankfurt wanted Asha Chennai to help monitor the work done at this school and to make the payments on behalf of Asha Frankfurt for the contractor. On behalf of Asha Chennai I got involved with the project in August of 2013. However due to various delays the actual work on the project got started only in December.

I went to the CSI Mint school first on 27th December 2013. Velusamy from JVM (the contractors) met me and showed me the work that has been done. With the explanations from him I can better understand the expenses that have been involved. The main work was in clearing the blocked manholes in the school. Basically they have a teacher's toilet (with two toilets) and a girl's toilet behind (with 5 toilets). The pipes that lead the sewage from these toilets to the outside were totally blocked for years and unusable. The manhole in the teacher's toilet, the two intermediate manholes to which both these toilet's sewage come to, the pipe that leads from these manholes to the outside were all totally blocked and had to be relaid. That was the major expense. Since there was some money left behind they did the commode and urinal for boys in the space available. 

 

See the pictures below. You will get better idea about the work.

 

https://picasaweb.google.com/107585009783091480118/CSIMintSchoolToilet?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCO74hJ647trX8AE&feat=directlink

 

At this point there were several requests from the schools and possible options on what Asha Frankfurt can fund.

 

The school Head Mistress wanted an eating area which can also function as a stage in the backyard of the building. Currently that area is open. They want one section of the backyard to be covered with light roofing (a kind of roofing made of semi-opaque or translucent plastic). They ideally want this elevated by 2 ft so that it can also function as a stage. This place is adjacent to the kitchen.

The roofing in the kitchen is leaking and needed replacement. Further the kitchen needed to be painted.

The toilets themselves required some more work to make it properly usable. Three doors in the girls' toilets are not there or are not proper needing repair/replacement. The commode and urinal that was newly made should at the minimum be provided with a door or more things can also done like making to toilets and also providing say 5 urinals.

 

 

Asha Frankfurt decided to fund the completion of the toilet work and relaying of the roof for the kitchen alone among these work items.  I visited the CSI mint school on Feb 6th 2014. The work was mostly complete. Good wooden doors have been provided for the entrance to the boys toilet and the entrance to the commode area inside the boys toilet. Two new PVC doors have been fitted at the girls' toilet and a third one repaired. Three additional urinals have been added to the boys toilet. The only remaining work is to connect water lines to the urinals. Sewage lines have been connected.  Here are the photos I took.

 

https://plus.google.com/photos/107585009783091480118/albums/5978639468962859729?authkey=CKXI8eS_kPzIzwE

 

 

I visited the school once again on 22nd Feb 2014. They had completed the contruction of the kitchen chnges. He has put aluminium roofing and has raised the level of that as well. A coat of paint has also been done in the toilet and the kitchen. All the work mentioned in the proposal had been completed. There were some concerns over how the school will maintain the toilets. Some of the fittings were getting broken by the boys even as the construction was going on. We hope the school will make good use of the facilities we have provided.

 

The photos from Feb 22nd were also added to the previous album.

 

 

Rajaram

Volunteer, Asha Chennai