New Toilets for Kenyan Schools - Project Completed 2016

In August 2014, the Rotary Clubs of  Eynsham, Oxford Spires, Bicester, Witney, Faringdon and Didcot received a grant from the Rotary Foundation to construct latrine blocks in five schools in Kilifi, Kenya. The project was developed in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Kilifi. The six clubs in the consortium contributed the equivalent $10,000 and this was boosted to a total of $40,000 through Rotary District and International grants.

Full details of the project can be found on our Press Releases page

Report on Global Grant awarded in April 2014 for Construction of Latrines

The original proposal was to build 6 latrine blocks consisting of 6 toilets in 6 schools in the Kilifi and Ganze area of Kenya.

The building of the latrines was completed by January 2016 in 4 schools, 6 latrine blocks in total with 2 in Mariani primary school and 2 in Ganze primary school (there was felt to be more need for latrines in these schools).

The budget for the building of the latrines and the monitoring and evaluation was 3,501,075.00 kshs equivalent to USD$40,568

There was a balance of 970,770kshs remaining in January 2016, which will be used to install handwashing facilities at each latrine block. The remaining funds will be used for evaluating the project as per RI recommendations. A few of the rotarians are lecturers at the Pwani University in Kilifi and it was suggested that one of their students could develop a questionnairre for the evaluation of the project and use this as the basis for a dissertation which is part of the degree course.

RC Kilifi are working hard to complete the project by the end of June 2016.

The technical advisor from RI visited the project in November 2015, this is a summary of her observations:

'Over all I must say , you are have done a good job in providing the toilets in the schools, as that singular action is keeping the schools opened. I was told by some of the Head teachers about the fact toilets are a key indicator for keeping schools opened.' 

The recommendations from the technicakl advisor were as follows:

Strengths

• Club members took a keen interest in the project implementation  and undertook periodic monitoring of the construction
• The club collaborated with PLAN Kenya on the design of the latrines. The club ensure all the toilets constructed meet national standards by inviting the Public Health Department to inspect and certify each school toilet .
• None of the toilets constructed is showing signs of defect
• The contractor comes from the community. School/Community  played a role in selecting sites on the school compound for the toilet, this is  a key element for the sustainability of the school toilets

Weaknesses

• Documentation was not up to date. For example there were some receipts missing in the files
• No inventory created  for assets of the project
• M & E is an integral part of  project management  needs to be incorporated in the implementation  plan
• The club has some extra funds left that could be channeled into providing hand washing facilities for the schools.

Pauine Lowe, Eynsham Rotary Club past president 2014/15, visited the project in January 2016 and managed to visit 2 schools and officially opened the last two remaining latrine blocks. She was impressed with the construction and has been involved in the discussions on the last stage of the project which is to provide hand washing facilities and to initiate the final evaluation stage of the project.