Project Brief: Asha Chennai project that builds and repairs toilets at schools that we work with through Projects Sangamam, Pearl, Thulasi and Poorna Vidhya. This will work towards improving the health and hygiene among the school children and the village.
Project Type: Capex / Infrastructure (description)
Primary Focus: health and cleanliness (description)

Secondary Focus: other

Area: Rural
Supporting Chapter Contact:
Chennai

Status: CURRENT
Project Steward: Rajaraman Krishnan
Project Partner(s): Bhaskar V
Project Address: Asha Trust - Sugadharam
First Floor, 85/2, Luz Avenue, Mylapore, Chennai 600004
Near Nageswara rao park
Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600004
Tel: 91 9444404060
Stewarding Chapter: Chennai

Asha Chennai has been working with government schools all over Tamilnadu under Projects Sangamam (Thiruvallur, Kamchipuram), Poorna Vidhya (Chennai, Chengalpet), Thulasi (Villupuram, Thiruvannamalai) and Pearl (Thoothukudi, Thirunelveli). Asha’s focus in these projects has been education. Our work usually directly relates to education like providing teachers and computer teachers, giving stationery materials, educational kits and such to the schools and the children etc. We take up infrastructure work only rarely. We do recognise that Hygiene and health are extremely important for children. Good education cannot happen without good health.

The toilet facilities in many of the schools are inadequate. The children end up openly defecating during the break time. But with rising urbanization, in many of the schools there aren’t even fields near the school. Further lack of toilet facility at middle and high schools is a major cause of girls to drop out as they attain puberty. For teachers too, working in a school without toilet facilities is very difficult.

Therefore as we get donors who are interested to take up such work, we have been taking up toilet construction and repair work at various schools. For the toilet work at schools we need the school to have the space for a new toilet or an old toilet in good enough condition to at least be repairable. Further we need support from the Panchayat, the Block officers and broadly the people from the village to be able to take up those activities. As these are school that Asha has been working with and supporting for several years, we can also ensure that the toilet built or repaired is being maintained well and remains useful for the children.

Hyundai Glovis has been supporting the Project Sangamam efforts at 8 of the schools as part of the Glovis Sangamam project. They have come forward to help construct toilets where there aren’t any available, repair the toilets which are in need of repair and also provide drinking water supply for villages that lack them. The project Sugadharam is an outcome of that support.

<u><b>Work done so far</b></u>
As Thiruvallur we have undertaken the repair and construction of several school spanning many years. A lot of these were taken up between 2017 and 2019 with support from Hyundai Glovis. <p>We were also able to take up work with schools supported under Thulasi, Pearl and Poorna Vidhya project with funding from Trimble in 2019. Here is a table that shows the various works that have been done under this project. <table border="1px"><tr><th>Year</th><th>Donor</th><th>School</th><th>Description of Work</th></tr><tr><td> 2013-14 </td><td>Asha Frankfurt</td><td>PUPS Placepalayam in Thiruvallur</td><td>Construction of new toilet block with three commodes and a urinal for girls</td></tr><tr><td> 2014-15 </td><td>Asha Frankfurt</td><td>PUPS Allikuzhi in Thiruvallur</td><td>Construction of new toilet block with two commodes and a urinal for girls.</td></tr><tr><td> 2016-17 </td><td>Hyundai Glovis</td><td>PUPS Thandalam in Thiruvallur</td><td>Construction of a new toilet with 3 commodes and a urinal area for girls.</td></tr><tr><td> 2017-18 </td><td>Hyundai Glovis</td><td>PUPS Gandhigramam PUPS Elappanaidu Pettai PUPS Nemiliagaram PUPS Katchur PUPS Kannigaiper PUPS Annanagar PUMS Anandheri
PUPS Ammambakkam PUPS Kuppathupalayam in Thiruvallur</td><td>Repair of toilets all all these schools. They all had toilets in various states of disrepair. Then we made functional and like new and given back to the school.</td></tr><tr><td> 2017-18 </td><td>Asha Pittsburg and Asha Frankfurt</td><td>PUMS Koppampatti and PUMS Nagalapur in Thoothukudi</td><td>At Koppampatti we constructed a new toilet block with 3 commodes and urinal area. At Nagalapuram we undertook repair work.</td></tr><tr><td> 2018-19 </td><td>Hyundai Glovis</td><td>PUMS Neyveli PUMS Athipattu PUMS Kunnavalam in Thiruvallur</td><td>These schools had toilets that required fairly major repair work. We made them functional and like new.</td></tr><tr><td> 2018-19 </td><td>Hyundai Glovis</td><td>PUMS Neyveli PUMS AthipattuPUMS Kunnavalam in Thiruvallur</td><td>These schools had toilets that required fairly major repair work. We made them functional and like new.</td></tr><tr><td> 2019-20 </td><td>Hyundai Glovis</td><td>PUMS Ramnjeri and PUPS Pudhukandigai in Thiruvallur</td><td>New toilets were built at both these schools. At Ramanjeri we constructed two blocks with 2 commodes and urinal area for boys and girls. At Pudhukandigai we constructed one such block to be shared by boys and girls.</td></tr><tr><td> 2019-20 </td><td>Hyundai Glovis</td><td>PUMS Manjakuppam PUPS Melvilagam PUPS Palavakkam PUPS Vallimapettai PUPS Kammavarpalayam PUPS Allikuzhi in Thiruvallur</td><td>All these school required minor repair work to the toilets to make them functional again.</td></tr><tr><td> 2019-20 </td><td>Trimble</td><td>PUPS Chidambarampatti in Thoothukudi</td><td>A new toilet was sanctioned and constructed in this school with 3 commodes and urinal area for girls.</td></tr><tr><td> 2019-20 </td><td>Trimble</td><td>PUPS Kumaragiri, PUMS Athikinaru in Thoothukudi</td><td>Significant repair work was required in both these schools’ toilets. They were done in late 2019.</td></tr> <tr><td> 2020 </td><td>Trimble</td><td>PUMS KaathuSithamboor in Villupuram and ADWMS Nandhivaram in Kanchipuram</td><td>New toilets were built in both these places. Kaatusithamboor toilet was more or less completed before the Corona struct but Nandhivaram work still not completed by that time. So they got delayed. They were finally completed and delivered before schools reopened.</td></tr></table>
Asha will continue to take up these kinds of toilet work at schools we support.</p>