Tamil Nadu: Five children aged around13years studying in Panchayat Union Middle School in Tamil Nadu’s Kurumbapatti village in Karur district, have come forward with an innovative idea to end the stench of urine in their school.
Meet the little innovators Supikpandian, Santhosh, Dhiyanithi, Ragul, and Prabaharan who decided to take up the challenge by to make their school toilet stench free.
The School did had a toilet but was in an unhygienic condition, did not qualify to be called as one, since it lacked proper drainage, water to clean after using it and with no proper urinals. The little boys would struggle to relieve themselves which would result in urinating on the floors soiling their feet and shoes with urine. Lack of water would not allow them to clean either. They would walk back in their classes in that unhygienic condition and the foul smell, causing various health issues to the children.
The competition for innovation that is held in schools all over India called ‘Design for Change’ gave the little kids a chance to solve the issue of their school unhygienic toilet.
They put forward their idea to re-design their toilet in front of their science teacher D. Kesavan who helped them design it even more properly. The project was named as Safe Mode Pissing System.
The cost for installing proper urinals in their toilets was out of question so the little kids came up with a different idea to substitute the urinals.
They re-designed their school toilet using large plastic water tumblers, cutting them in half longitudinally, removing the bottom, painting them white to look like urinals, attaching pipes at bottom to connect these plastic urinals to the toilet drainage pipeline. They attached thin water pipes with tiny openings connecting them in the urinals that would drip water continuously, solving both issues of proper urinals and water pipes to clean after using them. The kids made sure that the urinals are placed at the heights that would easy be accessible to all children with different heights.
The total installation cost them 600Rs only unlike other installations that would require thousands of rupees.
The school was awarded at the Design for change, India completion 2016 for this project and was the only government school to win it among 38 other government schools in Tamil Nadu who have also come up with their ideas. The school won a cash prize of 50,000Rs with five more medals for the little innovators and was also selected as one of the Stories of Change in the competition.
The winners approached other schools and communities with their idea to be easily implemented to fight the serious issue.
The students are now trying to come up with ideas to fix their another issue of water at their school.
‘Our school also suffers from water problems. Students are often unable to wash their hands after using toilets. With the amount that we have won from the competition, we are now looking to explore possibilities of solving water crisis in our school’, said Mr. Joslin Mary, Principal, Panchayat Union Middle School, as reported in NDTV.