4.5.1 School information
Radienya Primary School is located at South Nyakach in Kisumu County. It is a mixed day school for 330 pupils. The information about the school and its sanitation manage- ment was gained from the head teacher and the sanitary teacher. Table 11 presents the basic info and some statistics of the school.
Table 9, Basic information of Radienya Primary School
Issue Comments
Date 15.11.2011
Pupils: total/ boys/ girls 330/173 /153
Age range of the pupils 7-16 Primary school, no baby class
Teachers 9
GPS Coordinates 0°24'29.60"S, 34°58'8.21"E
Number of UDDTs 4
UDDTs for teachers, ratio 1:9
UDDTs for boys, ratio 1:88 Two UDDTs for boys
UDDTs for girls, ratio 1:153 One UDDT for girls
Pit latrines in use 4 Two for boys, two for girls. Also an urinal for boys.
Hand washing facilities Not function- ing.
Water tanks were stolen.
Soap available No
Ash available Yes
Bins in girls’ toilets No
Toilet paper No
In charge of maintenance Health Club With help from the teachers.
A school garden Yes
4.5.2 Condition of the Superstructure
In general UDDTs were sufficiently maintained. Partly facilities would need repairs and more maintenance such as cleaning and empting the overflowing urine containers. Some metal components were rusty as seen in Figure 19, which shows the vault doors behind the UDDTs. Isolation of the vault doors have been tried to improve with metal beams, but they suffer of getting rusty, as can be seen in the figure. One UDDT cubicle was
used for storing ash and had become untidy. There were some cracks and holes on the superstructure and no litter bins in girls’ cubicles. Faeces in the vaults were mixed with some un-decomposable material. Despite the demand for some small improvements, the facilities were generally functioning well without odours or flies. There was a harvest- ing system for rain water and it was functioning, but there were no tanks to collect the water as they had been stolen. Therefore there was no possibility for hand washing. Tanks were not attached to the structure and were stolen as they were located near to the road.
Figure 19, Vault doors behind the UDDT.
4.5.3 Usage of the facilities
UDDTs are used only by the oldest pupils as the usage is considered too difficult for the youngest pupils i.e. classes 1 to 3. There are altogether 4 UDDTs, two for boys, one for girls and one for teachers. If all the pupils were using the UDDTs they would be over- loaded. But according to the teachers the pupils who are allowed to use UDDTs, abso- lutely prefer them to the pit latrines. Problem with pit latrines have been, beside unhy- gienic conditions, sinking and collapsing of the toilets during the rain seasons.
There have been negative attitudes to some extent among the pupils towards uti- lization of the ecosan products, and also towards the regular cleaning to some extent, as the pupils are responsible of it. But on the other hand pupils value clean toilet facilities and they realise that someone has to clean them. Pupils also pay more attention on the correct usage of the facilities as they know that they are responsible of the maintenance themselves.
New pupils are trained each year by the teachers. But visitors from outside the school have caused some problems as they are not trained. If a visitor pays attention to the explanatory posters on the wall hewill probably manage using a UDD toilet correct- ly, but risk for a misuse is high.
4.5.4 Operation and Maintenance
The Health Club of the school is in charge of toilet cleaning, maintaining, ash provision (ash brought from their homes) and also empting the tanks and vaults. Classes 4 to 6 are using UDDTs and also in charge of their maintenance. Teachers clean their own UDDTs. According to the teachers urine tanks in pupils UDDTs get full almost every day, so there is lots of work with empting the containers and utilizing urine and faeces. Utilization is done together with the teachers. A motivation for Health Club members to maintain their UDDT facilities well, is the earned money from selling a part of the crop that is fertilized by ecosan products. With this money Health Club members are allowed to buy for example magazines or books.
4.5.5 Utilization of ecosan products
Urine is, at least most often, utilized for fertilizing banana trees and sugar cane. Urine is not stored, due to lack of space and storing facilities. Urine is directly mixed with water (ratio 1:3) and utilized on the trees and canes.
4.5.6 Main issues to be improved and recommendations on that
Teachers highlighted few issues that should be improved with the system, first of all instead of stairs there should be ramps to able also disable pupils to reach the toilets. On the other hand usage of the toilet itself can be challenging for disable pupils, without any handgrip or handle. Teachers also suggested that urine tanks should be bigger and hand washing tanks should be fixed so they could not get stolen. In addition more train- ing about the utilization would be required as e.g. more information about the differ- ences between tree and vegetable fertilizing with ecosan products. Two issues that would need urgent action are:
New water tanks to make hand washing possible, soap should also be provided. Misuse by visitors should be prevented.
4.5.7 Motivation for maintenance
The motivation factors for taking good care of the UDDT facilities are the usual ones: More comfortable facilities than the traditional pit latrines.
Hygiene is better.
Environment feels healthier.
The pupils are motivated to maintain the facilities, the affecting factors are i.e. partnership of the Health Club, extra money from selling the crops fertilized by UDDT products.