Building Classrooms for Zvamaida Primary School

In November last year, when I last wrote to update you, I said that the way had been cleared on the detail for the work on the toilets, and hygiene issues - which was mainly the Wash Station at the school. It has now been agreed in principal that 10 new toilets will be built, and that the existing 10 latrines will be reconditioned, so in total there will be 20 toilets for the children and staff.

The Wash Station will consist of 8 taps for hand washing. I attach a picture of a similar wash station to the one in our plans that is in use relatively local to Zvamaida Primary School.

Funding has currently been difficult and whilst we believe we have sufficent funds for this current phase of the project, we would welcome any funds you could afford towards the project in case we overrun the proposed costs. 

Once the toilets and wash station is complete, we will move onto the next phase of the project to complete the building of the school library

As you will recall, the library foundations were built at the same time as the classroom foundations were, (picture attached) so what we wish to achieve is to build the remainder of the building on top of the existing foundations.

I hope to be able to  report to you soon that the phase of the toilets and the wash station is complete.

Very best wishes

Danny

Dear Friend

Projects like ours can become very frustrating at times. Often funding is an ongoing issue, and it can wear you down as there are so many good causes around the world that attract new funding; logistics can be another one, and of course our not always useful friend 'Bureaucracy'!

We came across a potential problem in our endeavours to price the cost of building additional toilets and refurbish the existing ones. This problem related to a new declaration by Government that no more Blair Latrine toilets will be allowed to be built at schools, and that just a toilet water flushing system be allowed. This gave us a problem as we did not know if it would be required to rebuild rather than just refurbish the existing ones, but importantly if we had to have a flushing system what the potential increase in costs would be for the existing ones and the new ones.

It needed a face to face on site meeting with local officials to reach a solution to the problem. In the end it was agreed that the existing toilets were safe, but needed cracks filling properly, cleaned, and painted and that they then would have a fairly long life. On the question of  building new toilets, the authorities were happy enough that just Blair Latrines would suffice. That came as a relief as costs could well have rocketed.

Now we have clarity on this all, we are raising funds to conduct this work as soon as we can finance it.

Thank you for all your previous support, and as you will note from the above more financial help is needed.

Best wishes

Danny