Location Munsel-ling School, Rangrok, Spiti
Type Health and Education
Amount £13,537
Background about Spiti and the school
Spiti is a remote valley in north west India. It is home to many ethnic Tibetan families due to its close proximity to the Tibetan border. The valley is one of the poorest regions of India and 43% of the families there live below the national poverty line. Many parents cannot afford to send their children to school.
The altitude and harsh climate of Spiti means it is cut off from the rest of the country for months at a time as the heavy Himalaya snows make passes and roads impossible to cross.
Of the 3,000 school-aged children across Spiti valley, 500 of them go to Munsel-ling school. 300 of these children live at the school throughout the year. The school doesn’t receive any state funding and relies on donations to keep running.
Why they need help
The 178 girls who live and study at Munsel-ling school currently have to share just six toilets and showers.
Their only toilet block is 1km walk from the main building and the dormitories which are home to the girls. During the winter nights, they have to walk there alone, in the dark, through heavy snow drifts.
If a girl needs to go to the toilet during school time, they have to take 20 or 30 minutes from their lessons to make the round-trip…a big disruption to their studies!
Open defecation has become a big problem with girls not having time to make the round-trip. Contamination of the water supply as a result is common and every year at least 60 pupils fall ill with dysentery.
The project
We have given a grant so they school can build a new toilet and shower block much closer to the school building.
The new block will contain:
- 3 wet toilets for the summer months
- 3 dry toilets for the winter months (when water freezes in wet toilets)
- 5 solar heated showers (to make use of all the sunshine Spiti gets in the summer)
- 3 septic tanks
- 1 waste pit
This new toilet block will mean girls have much easier access to toilets and showers.
Instead of 30 girls to a toilet, there will now be 12. Girls will no longer have to make the lengthy, often unsafe, round trip to the toilets and will not have to miss more than a couple of minutes of class to use the loo!