Established in 2003 B. S., Viswa Niketan Higher Secondary School (VNHSS) comprises of mostly old structures including buildings and toilets. The earthquake of 2015 completely destroyed the main school building. Besides, the toilets were poorly maintained. Being a public school, VNHSS did not have enough funds for new constructions and maintenance. Therefore, students and staffs were compelled to use the old toilets.
“There is altogether 1 toilet for girls and 3 for boys in the school. In addition, the locks and doors are broken. Girls’ toilets are scattered with used menstrual pads and stinks. Despite having bins to properly dispose used menstrual pads,” said Bijayta Shrestha, a senior student of VNHSS.
Such situation made the school vulnerable in terms of sanitation. Considering the immediate need to toilet maintenance, GUTHI refurbished eight existing toilets at VNHSS in the month of May under Emergency Rain Project. On 17th May 2016, Marc Sylvester, Program Manager of International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance officially inaugurated the toilets. The school expressed their gratitude to the project citing that the repair work improved the hygiene and sanitation system of the school. Now the toilets have eight clean and well managed toilets.
“After the earthquake, we could not repair the existing bad state toilets due to lack of funds. But now with the assistance of GUTHI, we get to renovate these toilets and certainly it helped us for maintaining school hygiene,” said Helambar Kandel, Principal at VNHSS. Citing that positive message has flown to guardians also, he said, “We all are happy including guardians. We will certainly take good care of these toilets.”
Binod Kumar Shrestha, a non-teaching staff of VNHSS shared, “The condition of toilets has improved after repair works. The placement of tiles has made the cleaning easier.” Furthermore he said, “Most importantly the foul odor from the toilets has reduced significantly that used to disturb to the nearby classes.”
