Water & Sanitation facilities in Phulchowki Secondary School, Thaiba, Godawari Municipality

Rotary Club of Yala has been undertaking WASH programs in government schools since last two decades. Nepal has been facing a major challenge in fulfilling every child’s right to proper water, sanitation and hygiene. Though Nepal is blessed with huge amount of fresh water, the government has been unable to safeguard the wellbeing of children due to the difficult terrain and poor access to sparsely distributed settlements. Even the children of urban and semi-urban areas are faced with almost similar conditions. As such, there are hundreds of thousands of children in our country who lack access to proper drinking water, sanitation facilities, hygienic education settings.

The sustainable WinS (WASH in Schools) program, being launched by Rotary Club of Yala with possible cooperation with like-minded individuals and institutions, is intended to improve health, foster learning and enable children to participate as agents of change for their siblings, their parents and the community at large. This project will contribute to Rotary’s effort in making sure that every child receives the benefits of WASH in Schools.

The objective of the project is to realize five key benefits of WASH in Schools

• Healthy & protective school environment minimizing risk of disease, abuse & exclusion.

• Brings pride and commitment among children by enabling them to become agents of change

• Investment in the health and well-being of future generations.

• Promotes gender equity leading to higher girls’ school attendance & retention.

• Discourages habit of defecation in open

Phulchowki Secondary School was established as a community School and located in Thaiba, Godawari Municipality of Lalitpur District. It offers classes from Early Child Development (ECD) to Bachelor’s level, including Ten Plus Two Programs in Science, Humanities, Management (affiliated to National Examination Board), four years’ Bachelor Degree in Business Studies (affiliated to Tribhuvan University) and three years’ full time Diploma in Civil Engineering (affiliated to Council of Technical Education and Vocational Training). Altogether there are 65 teachers and 1300 students of which 780 are female students.

The school has two main buildings within its premise of 22 Ropani (2.76 Acres) land; one new building, 12 rooms, recently donated by the JICA, the Government of Japan, after the great 2015 Earthquake and another one an old building with 30 rooms currently under retrofitting. At present, the classes are run from early morning to late afternoon in the new building to accommodate most classes.

In spite of sufficient land and building infrastructure, the school direly lacks toilet facility. There is no separate toilet for teachers and staff. While constructing the new building, the toilet facilities were not included in the project. Each of existing old toilets for boys and girls can serve only five persons at a time, which is taxing to students and they miss lectures and lessons after the breaks.

Following the meeting between the School Management and Rotary Club of Yala, it was accepted that the school immediately needs new separate toilet facilities to serve 20-25 boys and girls at a time. In absence of these facilities, the school is facing problems in maintaining academic and administrative discipline as well as clean environment.