Methodist Boarding Home for Boys and Girls Water System and Toilet Facility Project

The Methodist Boarding Home for Boys and Girls cares for 120 orphan and semi-orphan (one surviving parent) children. Of this number 90 are boys and 60 are girls.

It is a three hour drive by car from Hyderabad to reach the home, located near the village of Chandrakal. This area of Andhra Pradesh is quite isolated with agriculture the sole occupation for the many small villages nearby.

This region is home to many tribal groups, easily identified by the women’s unusual style of clothing. They wear brightly coloured, sarong-like dresses that are adorned with numerous tiny mirrors, while larger mirrors dangle from their ears and are attached to their arms.

Many of the men are migrant laborers, traveling to distant areas in search of work, leaving their families behind while they move about seeking any employment they can find. Unfortunately, when the husbands return they often bring back more than the income they earned while away. AIDS is prevalent in the population, contracted by the men through sexual relations with prostitutes and then unknowingly given to their wives when they return home. Some of the children in the boarding home are AIDS orphans.

In the same compound that houses the boys’ and girls’ hostels is a free school for 600 students.

This is the only school serving ten villages and it draws students from an additional ten villages where the schools are inadequately equipped and the teachers poorly trained. Some students walk five to eight kilometres each way to attend school here.

The school was started in 1950 by an American missionary. The missionary effort was at its peak at that time and funding for construction and maintenance of schools and orphanages was provided by the home conferences and churches of the missionaries assigned to India.

Most foreign missionaries have now left the country and today the Methodist Church in India is operated by Indian citizens and foreign funding has shrunk drastically. Consequently, there are inadequate funds to operate the institutions started in the last century and absolutely no funds for improvements to the ageing facilities.

The drinking water and sanitation at this children’s home and school was dreadful and contributed significantly to illnesses in the children who had no recourse but to drink the water.

Five hundred metres away from the Methodist compound, across a highway and out in a pasture, was the sole source of drinking water for the 600 students and hostel children.

Water was pumped from a borewell to fill a large open, stone-sided tank. It was then piped under the highway into the Methodist compound where it filled another open tank.

From here a second electric motor pumped the water into a small holding tank where it was removed via buckets. A hand pump in the compound grounds was unworkable due to the low level of the ground water after five years of drought. A neighbour had to drill 800 vertical feet to reach water.

The open tank across the highway was used by some 2,000 villagers to collect water every day. This meant that many hands were immersed in the water. But even worse was the fact that livestock were brought to the reservoir to drink and some of the local boys used it as a swimming pool. By the time the water reached the second open well on the compound grounds it was an unhealthy green colour.

A WTN representative spoke to the doctor who treats the hostel and school children.

The doctor, who was European schooled, said he treated numerous water and mosquito-borne diseases in the children, including gastroenteritis, diarrhea, intestinal parasites, elephantiasis, malaria, skin irritations and other ailments. He attributed these illnesses to the unsanitary source of water.

He stressed the need to immediately drill a new borewell, construct an enclosed water tank and cease using the open well across the highway.

Contributing to the children’s heath problems was the inadequate toilet facility for the girls’ hostel.

This unit was constructed 70 years ago and the concrete walls and floor were crumbling, making proper cleaning impossible. The same unsanitary water that was used for drinking was also used for bathing, contributing to dermatological diseases.

The toilet was open on top and the wall was too low to provide privacy for the girls when they bathed and used the toilets.

Solution and Benefits

WTN drilled an 800 foot deep borewell inside the compound, and purchased an electric pump and the piping needed to carry the water 150-200 metres to the school and to both the boys’ and girls’ hostels.

A large underground, enclosed storage tank was built to ensure the water remained uncontaminated, and a secondary, smaller tank was constructed in the school grounds for use by the students during the day.

The open-air toilet that served the girls’ hostel was demolished and a new enclosed toilet and bathing facility built in its place. The new unit has six private latrines and six individual bathing cubicles with porcelain tile floors for easy cleaning. A water tank adjoining the toilet provides on-demand water for toiletries, bathing and clothes washing.

Finally, a septic system disposes of waste water properly. The water system benefits 630 day students (that number includes the 150 current orphanage children) and the toilet block provides sanitation and privacy to 60 girls.

Teachers and staff of the Methodist High School and Boarding Home for Boys and Girls

Mrs. Omega Chandrasekhar, superintendent of the orphanage and school, standing with the orphanage children in front of the boys’ hostel

The school which provides a free education for over 600 village children. The superintendents of all the Methodist schools and children’s homes in this area are women, a rare situation in a country where administrative positions are dominated by men.

Drinking water for the Methodist Boarding Home for Boys and Girls was pumped out of the ground and into an open tank in a field 500 metres from the boarding home.

Behind Mrs Chandrasekhar are the open bathing cubicles once used by the girls. The toilets were a similar design.

The holding tank for the girls’ bathing and toilet area. Note the unhealthy colour of the water.