School history

Andong Neang Primary school is located in Andong Neang Village, Trakream Commune, Banan District, Battambang Province. It’s 45 km from Banan District’s center, along a dirt road. This school was built in 2002 on 20,000 m² piece of land.  There are 63 children attending the school.

State of the school before the conversion

Power supply

None Available

Water resources, incl. WaSH

In the rainy season, the school mostly uses water from the 4,000 RRH for the latrine, hand washing, and cleaning the school facilities, but this is not nearly enough for meeting the students’ daily needs. In addition to this, the RRH has leaks and a roof that is poor condition, resulting in water leaking and evaporating at a rapid pace, leaving the tank empty within five days. The director can fill the RRH tank with untreated river water bought from a tank-truck at $6.25 per tank, but this can only be done on special occasions, as there is no enough money in the school budget to support this on a day to day basis. Most importantly, the school is not able to provide the children with any drinking water. Finally, during the long dry-season (Nov-May), at which time the children are at school full-time, there is no rainwater and with the few exceptions when water can be bought from the tank-truck, no water at all for any purpose.

Condition of the latrines

There is 1 latrine building at the school containing 4 functioning toilets, built in 2008. While old, the latrine was well made and is still in good condition. Training will need to focus on proper cleaning and use of the toilets, however (see photos), there were some issues with cleanliness and overall poor hygiene. Importantly, the latrine often does not function due to water shortages.

Waste Management

All the classrooms are equipped with trash bins. There are no trash bins or receptacles of any sort on the school grounds, however, resulting in garbage being thrown on the ground. Garbage is collected and disposed of in a disorderly fashion 20 meters from the classrooms, as there is no garbage collection anywhere in rural Cambodia. Garbage is rarely disposed of, but is burned occasionally, often when the children are present.

General condition of the school (cleanliness / maintenance)

There are student rosters for garbage collection and latrine cleaning, but they do not appear to be used or paid much attention to.

Upgrading the school

In October 2017, a WASH (Water Sanitation Hygiene) project was launched to improve the disastrous situation for the schoolgirls. The project is a joint initiative of two non-profit organisations and an electrical company: Bareebo Organization (Bareebo), a non-profit organisation in Cambodia, kleine Hilfsaktion e.V., a German non-profit organisation that helps disadvantaged and / or underserved population groups in Cambodia and Elektrotechnik Peltzer GmbH in Düsseldorf. Only through the spontaneous willingness of Christian Peltzer, who looked at the situation personally and on site in February 2017, the 63 pupils and the teachers were able to be helped and thus countless illnesses and certainly many deaths were prevented. We cannot thank you enough for this commitment.

Planned Measures

• Rainwater collector, including foundation and rainwater delivery system: 5 pcs. with 4,000 l each
• Bio-Sand-Filter (BSF): 4 pcs.
• Hand washing stations: 2 pcs.
• Latrine (1 toilet): 0 pcs.

Teacher training

• Project organization and planning
• WASH use and maintenance
• Waste Management in cooperation with Plastic Free Cambodia

Student Group Formation & Training

We collecting smart student from each level of class to form them to become Youth Club and let them understand:

• How to leading group
• How to do teamwork
• How to set Washing Activities in their school
• How to share knowledge to the others
• How to report their activity.

Water analysis
All drinking water will be tested to ensure that the drinking water is safe and clean

Monitoring & Evaluation
Ongoing

Cost per capita / child for an effective, long-lasting and sustainable implementation of
basic living conditions 83,09 € 

With a total budget of only 5.234,46 € for 63 students, four teachers and all other employees of the school, the inhumane conditions were effectively, long lastingly and sustainably eliminated, the number of diarrhoea diseases due to poor sanitary conditions, impure drinking water and lack of hygiene were able to be reduced. The WASH project of the Andong Neang Primary School was implemented on budget and all given goals were achieved. The quality and quantity of the installed WASH infrastructure and technologies are continuously monitored by Bareebo, the local partner organisation of kleine Hilfsaktion e.V..

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Emergence and meaningfulness – WaSH (water sanitary hygiene) project

During our trip in January / February 2013, we became aware of the disastrous conditions of a school near Banan. There is no drinking water, no hand washing facility and no toilet. The children are forced to releive themselves in the bushes behind the school. It is not hard to imagine which health dangers emanate from this condition.

When Bong and I visit the school together with our team, we ask the children who would like to have something to drink. About 30% of the small children have some water, bottled in an old plastic bottle, cloudy and unimaginably dirty. When a little girl proudly pulls out her bottle to drink from it, I suddenly feel the need to knock the bottle out of her hands. It brings tears to my face, especially as I myself have a little daughter at home. The idea that she would have to drink this broth and then make her emergency (95% diarrhea) behind the school, all without toilet paper and without the option to wash your hands …. this idea will not leave my mind for days.

We had to work out a plan of how we could change this. Back in Germany, I had the opportunity to present this project to the Rotary Club „Willich“. My listeners quickly realized that with little money, many children can be sustainably helped. The projects are sustainable, effective and almost unbeatable in relation to the budget needed and the quality / quantity of the aid. We are building a pilot project and one of our most successful programs has its origins: WASH.

Today, four years later, in cooperation with the two Austrian organizations „Wasser-für-die-Welt“ and „Last-Hope“, the Rotary Clubs „Willich“ and “Neuss”, we have launched the „moeglichkeitenschenken“ initiative Partner agency „springer f3“ and, of course, our partner organization „Bareebo“ has already converted 21 schools and thus helped around 3,000 children.

Talk to us and become a development worker. We have schools that fit into your budget and you can help there effectively, concretely and sustainably.

Project coordinates: 13.090083, 102.920167

Date: March 08, 2018