Sanitary Facilities to a group of low income families
government's food subsidiary there is no other means of survival.
Each rainy season, their “makeshift” toilets gets washed away by heavy rain, and water borne diseases make children ill, but building a proper toilet had been a dream for many many years..
JSSF saw the need of this poor community and decided to help them. A “community participatory project” was designed, where building materials and equipment to be provided and responsibility of designing and building was placed on the recipients.
The recipients were chosen by the Village Service Officer, (the village based government officer) who had the information on each family's income and other statistics. When the idea was taken to him he was very happy & was quick to offer help by identifying families who deserve our help. Once the recipient list was chosen, a village meeting was called to agree on the accuracy of the list of recipients and to decide on the implementation plan of the project. Now, to look for funding….!
A proposal was prepared, and sent the Australian High Commission. Thanks to the generosity of the Australian Government, they agreed to sponsor our project . JSSF bought and delivered all the building materials and other equipment required to build 45 squatting toilets to the chosen families.
People worked tirelessly, because they had to race with the time, heavy rainy season was on the way, which would have interrupted work for weeks, may be months…
In spite of a few set backs, the project is almost complete - just before the onset of the monsoon. Heavy storms and rain will not be able to wash away the newly built strong cement toilets like it did last time, and children would be safe from diarrhea and water will be clean and safe for villagers in Keenagahawila !
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