Our Primary Project – School Latrines

Our Primary Project was SWASH which stands for School, Water and Sanitation Hygiene. We worked with a partner organisation, a Tanzanian NGO called MAMADO, who had received funding from Water Aid. Our role was to assist the community in building school latrines as well as raising awareness around hand hygiene.

We measured out the holes and marked them out with danger tape before beginning to dig down. We didn’t get a great deal of help from the community, apart from 3 men who were being paid. The concept of volunteering was relatively new in the village.

 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, things were different when we began making the bricks. As well as 5 men, who were being paid, working with us, a lot of community members also came to volunteer with us. We made the bricks by mixing sand, cement and water, and then using a mould. In total we made 2400 bricks (by hand) which were slowly but surely being moved to the school when we left.

Making 1 of the 2400 bricks

A villager pouring water onto the sand and
cement, ready to be mixed

We had to water the bricks twice a day for a week, to stop the bricks from cracking

Some of the bricks were transported by cows 

Unfortunately we didn’t get to start building the latrines (nor did any of the other Charlie groups) as an engineer never arrived!

But the building of the latrines wasn’t necessary the most important part of the project. As part of SWASH, we also had to give awareness raising sessions to the school children and teachers, which I’ll tell you more about next time.

MAMADO had a 2nd project in Chipanga - putting in water pipes. We helped dig the trenches in our first week. The ground was incredibly hard so we had to use pick axes before shovelling out the rocks/dirt.