I have written several times about successful CanAssist projects that help children and communities in East Africa to acquire improved sanitation facilities – or, in some cases, ANY sanitation at all.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me proudly tell you about another CanAssist-African community success, achievable through Canadian donors, the CanAssist African Relief Trust and responsible African community leaders.
Last July, our Kenyan field representative for CanAssist, Dan Otieno, made a visit to the Twiga school in Ruriru district of Kenya.
Boys toilets at the Twiga School before CanAssist intervention.
There he met with one of the officers of the Murera Community Empowerment and Support Organization. He visited the Twiga school where sanitation facilities were, like in so many East African schools, sub-standard. Disgusting and deplorable might be better adjectives.
The toilets for boys and girls and staff were falling apart and in some cases full of excrement and unusable. there are about 500 kids and 13 teachers using these latrines. I want to ask my Canadian teacher friends if you can even imagine this.
I have asked this question before. Would you want your kids (or you if you are a teacher at this school) using these latrines?
Through donations to CanAssist from individuals along with a $3000 dollar donation from the British Columbia based Grey Gates Foundation, we were able to secure the funds to repair the girls toilet and to build new latrines for the boys and staff. We sent the money to do this (about $7500 in total) to the community in February 2014.
Only a few weeks later we have received photos of the new installations at the school, including refreshed girls toilets, new toilets for the boys and the staff and a hand-washing station to be used by everyone. It is intuitively obvious that these improvements will be both more aesthetic and sanitary for the school and will also provide better privacy for toilet use and help reduce the spread of gastrointestinal illnesses.
I will let the photos speak for themselves.
New CanAssist-funded boys toilets at the Twiga School in Ruriru District. Kenya
New hand washing station at the Twiga school, funded by CanAssist. Handwashing has been shown to markedly reduce the spread of disease so it is an integral part of any school sanitation program.
Refurbished and reconstructed girls toilets at the Twiga School.
johnageddes 
YEAH! Your choice of the name couldn’t have been better! Your and nany other good-hearted can actualy assist and male a difference thru sacrifising a little. I wish others could borrow a leaf and adopt yr approach of direct support to micro projects for deserving communities, the huge loans incurred by govts would be reduced and be 4 huge capital projects like roads, railways, power and a few others. Bravo! Phinny
Thanks for your comments, Phinny. Always good to get feedback from people in Africa who can see what we are trying to do though CanAssist. Your comments and suggestions help us formula of our policy.
Good project