With financial support from the Rotary Foundation, Rotary Chadstone/East Malvern is one of 18 Rotary Clubs working together to change the lives of over 300 families in Kok Beng a village in remote rural Cambodia by building around 345 washroom/toilets.The project involves installing new toilet washrooms in Kok Beng, and where there is a situation where there is already a toilet, the project will provide rebuilt underground tanks due to the fact that the existing systems are contaminating the village's drinking water. Construction has been split into two stages: below ground and above ground, with the plan to complete the below ground works before the beginning of the wet season in the region.
A washroom/toilet is a family toilet but with the above-ground shelter built wider so that women can bathe themselves and their children in safety and with dignity. Currently, the women are exposed to sexual and physical assaults when they use the bushland as their toilet. Further, the engineering design of the two-tank below-ground septic toilet system ensures that clean water is returned to the aquifer, the source of drinking water. Currently, human waste seeps back into the aquifer, and the cycle of gastro and other illnesses is compounded.
All up, around US$220,000 / AU$330,000 in grant funding has been approved. Rotary Chadstone/East Malvern Rotarians have turned many sausages at Bunnings and conducted successful Craft Markets to provide their share of the funding. The Rotary Foundation acknowledges both the fundraising efforts of Rotarians and the life-changing nature of the project by providing a large share of the total project costs.
Author: Paul Rake, President, Rotary Chadstone/East Malvern