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Fiji Hub Achievement Report February 2015 Objective: WASH

Composting toilet solutions completed at Navunisea District School

GVI has constructed new hygiene and sanitation facilities at Navunisea District School to ensure that all children have access to safe, clean and functioning toilets throughout the school year.

The state of the sanitation facilities has been a continuing issue at Navunisea Primary school with a lack of water pressure preventing toilets from flushing. Furthermore, a lack of toilet paper was causing students to use their text books as an alternative paper source resulting in the pipe blockage. This has resulted in a closure of the toilets throughout the year with no viable alternative. To ensure that the students have a safe and reliable sanitation facility, GVI designed and built a composting toilet; providing a sustainable, environmentally friendly alternative.

One of the main benefits of using the composting toilets at Navunisea is that they do not rely on any water to function and therefore can be used throughout the year with very little maintenance required. This makes the project even more cost effective as no plumbing services are required. Once waste matter created by the new toilet is composted down it will be used on local crops surrounding the school, helping to improve soil nutrition.

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Streamlining the Design

GVI staff worked to design a composting toilet after researching different designs and after trialling a composting toilet system successfully using a basic design in the Yasawas. The final design, utilizes materials easily available in Fiji that are low cost, construction only requires basic carpentry and construction skills, the building is solid and durable, and is safe and simple to use for both children and adults.

Construction of the new facilities

Construction of the toilets was completed by GVI community volunteers over several weeks to ensure the facilities were ready for the start of the new school year. The toilet consists of two chambers. Once the first chamber has been filled, the seat is switched over to use the empty chamber whilst the first chamber is composting down. Dried grass which has been cut from the school fields is used as the composting ingredient which is placed down the chamber before and after each school day by the head boy and girl. This is monitored by the teachers who have been trained on the maintenance and benefits of the new toilet.

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An essential part of the improvement of facilities and to improve hygiene awareness was to provide an area for students to wash their hands next to the new toilet. Consequently two hand washing stations called tippy taps were created to reinforce hand washing practices. These simple structures use materials which can be found around the village to produce a tipping container controlled by a foot lever. This has created a 40 litre hands-free washing area which can be easily used by students of all ages.

Awareness workshops

Awareness raising workshops on how to use the compost toilet and hand washing facilities were delivered to each class within the school. This is part of the integrated approach used by GVIs community construction team which aims to increase sustainability of projects by delivering awareness on all projects within schools. Lessons were practical, highlighting how to use the toilet and what should and shouldnt go into it, ensuring that the toilets are used correctly and the waste becomes compostable. Compost captains were selected to ensure that dried grass is put in the toilet every day and that the

Figure 1 Tippy Taps in Action

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tippy taps are filled with water. As all stakeholders have the knowledge to maintain and use the facilities correctly, it gives the students and teachers ownership over this project therefore extending its lifespan and sustainability.

Figure 2 Students are shown how the new toilets work

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