Varsity students build toilet for female students

BIRATNAGAR, NOV 18 - With an intention to help female students, three graduate level students from Kathmandu University (KU) have helped construct a toilet for female students at Bidhya Bikash Primary School in Biratnagar-19.

Using money collected through donations, students Aastha Basnet, Sahara Basnet, and Aarju Basnet have constructed a three-roomed building with two toilet s and a bathroom for female students at the cost of Rs 275,000.

The school, which runs classes from grade one to eight has a total of 336 students, of which 206 are females. However, due to lack of separate toilet s for girls, the female students had been facing a hard time and had trouble attending the school on a regular basis.

“We felt the need to do something after learning about their plight and managed to collect Rs 300,000 in donations through various programmes,” Aastha said during the handover ceremony on Friday, adding that the remaining amount will be used to procure stationeries for the students. “Although it is not a big achievement, we wanted to spread the message about their problem and draw the attention of stakeholders and concerned authorities,” she added.

The trio had learned about the plight of the students when they had reached Mangalbare in east Morang during March last year to distribute clothes and relief materials. As the students were compelled to abandon school during their menstrual cycle owing to lack of separate girl’s toilet , affecting their studies, we wanted to do something that would send a message to the society, Aastha said. Previously, the school only had a two-roomed toilet , one for the teachers and another for students, said an eighth grader Laxmi Sharma.

Stating that the toilet used to be filthy and female students had to play truant during their menstruation, Laxmi said that they were grateful now that they did not have to refrain from attending school on such pretexts.

Published in The Kathmandu Post on: 2014-11-18 (4th page)
url link : http://goo.gl/7OE5JS