Dry ToiletsMambo school toilets - A report and guideline for building a school dry toilet

by Herman Erdtsieck, Director, MamboViewPoint , Lushoto-Tanzania

Mambo is a small village in the Usambara mountains in Tanzania. The Mambo Primary school has about 2000 pupils who are visiting the school in 2 shifts because of a lack of teachers and class rooms. Like many schools around, sanitary was not well provided and something had to be done.

Thanks to the Dutch school “Herman Gorter” in Zaandam the budget came available to build 2 new toilets, one for boys and one for girls.

In this guide you will find the design and the practical implementation of the toilets.
The design and supervision are done for free by the crew of MamboViewPoint eco lodge.

Background

A full documented background of building toilets can be found in “The Guide to Sanitation and Hygiene for Those Working in Developing Countries” from the Finish organisation Global dry toilet association http://www.drytoilet.org/

The main details from the above document used in Mambo are the following:

• The idea is to separate urine an faeces in order to be able to get fertilizer.
• The possibility to get the fertilizer out once in a while.
• Separation of urine also reduces the needed number of needed toilets since in most cases the urinals can be used instead of the toilets and also the urinals will be used for shorter periods. In our case the result is 1 toilet and 1 urinal place for every 60 kids instead of the theoretical needed 1 toilet for every 15 kids. In rush hours kids only have to wait for a short while.
• Boys and girls have a separate building, away from each other. Because of safety reasons the girls-toilet is not too far away from crowded areas.
• Since the toilets are based in a mountain area, the ground water level is no problem because all water floats to lower levels and is filtered by the sand.
• The toilets have running water-taps for hand-washing and cleaning. The waste water from the taps is used to clean the urinals.
• To reduce smell the toilets are a bit dark and the compost chamber has a chimney on the outside.
• The design is simple and low budget.
• Before putting the toilets in use, training regarding hygiene is provided for staff and children.
• During utilization, supervision and cleaning will be arranged by the school.

Dowload the full guide at http://www.mamboviewpoint.org/Downloads/Mambo Schooltoilets.pdf