Toilet repair work was taken up at the two schools in Old Thirupatchur and Kosavanpalayam in August/Sept 2022 and completed. New toilet construction is also going on at Gandhigram.

Sugadharam Thiruvallur – Oct 2022

By Rajaraman Krishnan, volunteer Asha Chennai

Asha Chennai received funding from Asha Silicon Valley towards repair work at three toilets and construction of a new one. The repair work at Koovachipatti at our Pearl Project was completed back in April of 2022. Here is the report on that work. Update on the rest of the work is covered in this report.
Click here to see more photos from this work.

Old Thirupatchur

The water coming from the Panchayat did not have enough pressure to fill their tank which would then provide water to the toilet. Pipeline from the tank to the toilet was also clogged. The school had a motor that needed to be connected.
We did the following work,

1. Connected the motor to fill the tank.
2. New pipes to eliminate the clogged pipes to the toilet.
3. New fittings at the toilet.
4. Repair to a metal door.
5. Elevate the Syntex tank a bit to provide pressure to the toilet.
6. A coat of paint.

These were taken up and completed in August and early Sept. I also visited the school along with volunteers from UP on Sept 2^nd. The school HM and teachers were very happy that this work got completed. The school has good toilet facilities now.

Kosavanpalayam

Kosavanpalayam had toilets for both boys and girls and once again the plumbing was bad and many of the fillings needed to be replaced.
We did the following work,

1. New wash basins.
2. New fittings at the toilet.
3. Repair to a metal door.
4. A fresh coat of paint.

We took up this work and completed it in September. Asha Chennai often has its meetings and training sessions at Kosavanpalayam. Our Science and Maths training in early October were held at Kosavanpalayam. We could see the renovated toilet facilities at that time.

Gandhigramam

The old toilet was beyond repair at Gandhigramam and we decided to build a new toilet for the school which we have been supporting for many years. This was a small school. The idea was to build a compact urinal cum toilet each for boys and girls. We gave this contract to one Jhigo Infrastructure that has built several toilets for us in the past (at Thandalam, Puthukandigai, and Ramanjeri). Their quality was good but they always take this task as a little lower priority and end up delaying a lot. The same is happening this year too. The work has been progressing in spurts now and then. It is finally brought to the level of complete shell now. They have to still do the plumbing, electrical, tile, painting etc work. Here are some pictures from the construction.