Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Help us build bathrooms?

One of the biggest problems in this community on the bay is that the indigenous people have no bathrooms. Latrines don't work because the water table is too high, and no one can afford a flushing toilet system. Some families have little outhouses on stilts, that empty right onto the bay, while most just go in a river or on the mangroves. This pollutes the bay and raises health concerns for both residents and wildlife.

A couple weeks ago I held a meeting for anyone interested in discussing a bathroom project. About 40 people showed up, all in aggreement that we need to do something. We decided to build one bathroom for each homestead. The community is divided into homesteads, with about 20 people living in each one.

One family has been particulary proactive about comparing prices for toilets, tanks, etc. They brought me a penciled blueprint of the bathroom they want to build, and assured me that they can do all the construction themselves. They just can't afford the toilet and the tanks.

We decided to focus on this homestead first, as a model for the others to follow.

Appropriate Projects aggreed to help us raise $550. If you could donate a little bit towards the project, we would really apreciate it!

Here's the link:
 http://appropriateprojects.com/node/1138

Thank you!

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