Methodist Rural Children’s Home Girls’ Hostel Toilet Block Project

The Methodist Rural Children’s Home is located approximately 20 kilometres west of Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh, India. The children’s home consists of both a boys’ and girls’ hostel, separated from each other by several hundred yards.

Wherever the Need previously assisted this institution by providing funds for improvements to the boys’ hostel toilet (68 boys) and funding to construct a new toilet at the nearby Methodist Rural High School, serving 750 students.

The Methodist Church of India is the primary provider of education and orphan care in the rural areas surrounding Hyderabad. All of these facilities were established 50 to 100 years ago by missionaries from foreign countries.

At that time, funding from European and North American churches was plentiful, and it was assumed a funding base for operational expenses and building maintenance would continue unabated, from the same churches that paid to erect these institutions. That has not proved to be the case, and deterioration of the buildings has reached a point where the health and safety of the children and staff is compromised.

Though the children’s home can physically accommodate as many as 250 orphans, because of a shortage of operating expenses and deterioration of the structures, the hostels have limited their residents to 68 boys and 76 girls.

Problem

The toilet facility for the 76 hostel girls was quite dilapidated. The crumbling concrete floors proved impossible to clean and the open water tank that served the toilet was in very poor condition.

The toilet block was a small, windowless, depressingly dark structure, with mouldy walls and broken toilets. One major problem with toilets and bathing areas in many Indian orphanages is the architectural style that was in vogue in the first half of the twentieth century.

People respected the privacy of women and girls in India at that time, and bathing areas and toilets were generally built without roofs. Today, however, this design compromises the modesty of the girls, as men sometimes peer over the compound wall to watch the girls as they bathe.

The overhead storage tank that supplied water to the girls’ hostel constantly leaked. Open drains, common throughout India, took the waste water and emptied it into a nearby field, creating a breeding ground for mosquitoes and flies.

Solution and Benefits

Wherever the Need provided funds to replace the girls’ hostel toilet block with a new enclosed building with 10 squat-style toilets and a private area for bathing. A 7,000 litre water tank serves this facility. A clothes-washing platform with a 5,000 litre water tank has been built in another location.

There are separate septic tank systems for the bathing/toilet facility, and the clothes washing area. There is a small bathroom for the administrative office, and a 10,000 litre overhead water tank to serve the overall needs of the hostel has also been constructed. Finally, a borewell has been dug and a hand pump fitted to the well.

This provides water when the electric current fails, as it frequently does.

The design for these units provides the privacy the 76 girls urgently need, as well as assuring a constant supply of clean water on demand. The two septic systems ensure the waste water does not create stagnant ponds, ending a health hazard for the hostel.

The old girls’ toilet building provided privacy but was a dark and depressing structure with broken toilets, crumbling concrete floors and mold covering the walls.

The old girls’ toilet building.

The bathing area was open on the front and visible to village men who peer over the compound wall.

The main water tank was leaking and needed to be replaced with a new 10,000 litre tank.