SHIPO | Southern Highlands Participatory Organization

PROGRESS ACTIVITY FOR LATRINE CONSTRACTION MWEMBETOGWA B PRIMARY SCHOOL IN MAKAMBAKO TOWN COUNCIL

1.0. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background information

Mwembetogwa B primary school is one of the schools built by SHIPO in cooperation with the community members of Makambako town ship around 2006 and handed over to the community. In 2007 the school was officially opened starting with pupils who were split from Mwembetogwa making this one to be Mwembetogwa B. Following the good infrastructures built, pupils have been performing better to make so many pupils be selected to join with secondary schools around Njombe Region and through out the country. However since SHIPO handed over the school to the community it has still been maintaining friendship through visitation.

In one of the visits SHIPO managed to learn that there is rapid increase of the number of pupils in the school, but the drop holes are not enough for the increasing number of pupils and even those available are of no good quality, there fore this made SHIPO find a need to support these pupils with building drop holes in cooperation with the community members.

During visits we realized some other things that are going well and some that might need to be considered for rehabilitation and the general school information as shown here bellow;

• Head teachers name: Frowin o. Haule
• School registration number: EM. 15709
• Examination number: PS
• Total number of pupils 589 (Male 270 and 319 Female)
• The school has 11 teachers (2 Males and 9 Females)

 2.0 Good things observed;

• All standard IV,V,VI and VII master 3R.
• The school have 9 classes to accommodate the available number of pupils.
• Pupils get lunch while at school contributed by parents as follows;
• 40 liters of maize to every pupil per year.
• 14 liters of beans for every pupil per year.
• 10 liters of rice for every pupil per year and
• 20,000/= every parent. This helps to buy salt, cooking oil, paying the cooker and the school watchman.
• They have a borehole as a source of water for uses at school
• The school have 2 blocks of drop holes, 1 for boys pupils and 1 for girls pupils, each block has 8 drop holes good for pupils use, and more over each block have 1 drop hole for the disabled pupils.
• Lunch is provided at school through parents contributions (parents contribute maize, beans, rice, salt and cooking oil.

3.0. Challenges observed;

• The school have 2 blocks of drop holes, 1 for boys pupils and 1 for girls pupils, each block has 16 drop holes to make a total of 32 drop holes in the school but they are not good for pupils use, and do not consider disabled pupils though they are not there in the school.
• They do not have school library for reference books.
• They do not have kitchen with dining hall where they can cook and eat.
• No special room for girls pupils.
• Books are also a challenge to meet pupils ratio.

4.0. Way forward

 SHIPO as one of the stakeholders in education and child protection, in cooperation with the community members of Makambako have so far started the processes of contraction of toilet at Mwembetogwa B. primary school as one of its contribution to the community in valuing education and child protection.

5.0 Some photos taken at the site

Figure 1&2:  Contraction materials bricks and sand collected

Figure 3: The level of pit latrine dug up

6.0. Conclusion

Activities  for collection of sand, bricks, gravels, stones and building  the pit are still going on by SHIPO masons and  the community members of Makambako town ship as beneficiaries of the project.