No wonder,
the Rotary Club of Ikoyi (District 9110) after needs assessment of all the
schools within its jurisdiction settled for the St Mary’s Girls Primary School
in Lagos Island, Lagos State to renovate the school toilets, provide borehole,
4 water tanks of 2500 liters capacity each, build wash stations, and re-pipe
the entire water system in the school all the projects amounting to N4.5million.
The gigantic
project which took the club two years to come to fruition was commissioned on
Monday, May 22, 2023 at the school premises, with both students, Lagos State
schools management and staff of the school thumbing up the Rotary Club for the
laudable initiative.
Speaking at
the event, Dr Augustin Irabor, the current President, Rotary Club of Ikoyi (District
9110) said the project was undertaken courtesy of a popular grant organized through
District 9110. “This project started about two years ago, we were able to
identify the schools in area where we could support our community. The project
was facilitated by District 9110, so we identified this school, St Mary’s
Girls’ School, and then we came for the first initial need assessment, we
discovered that the state of the toilet facility they have, half of them were
not in functional state, and we identified it and put it in our project for
this year.
“We were quite
fortunate to get approval from the global grant; that is the Rotary
International, we now have to put in our own to execute the project; that is
what we have come to commission today,” Irabor disclosed.
On the reason
for choice of St Mary’s School, he made it clear that in as much as every
school in the community has their special needs, those of St Mary’s Girls’ Primary
School required more urgent attention, adding that the club started with its immediate
community “Rotary Club of Ikoyi is just about five minutes from here. So it is
good to start from where you live. For the projects, we have to first of all give
preference to our immediate community; that is Ikoyi and Island and its
environs.”
Advising the
benefitting school on need to maintain the facility, he said “The facilities
were put there for the good use of the children because if you had come here at
the first time, you would realize that, yes, it is not in the good interest of a
child to study in a dilapidated environment because the toilet, the water
system, is hygiene, and hygiene is very key to the wellbeing of every person,
but more importantly also for the children, they should make good use of these
facilities so that when others would see it, it will encourage them to do more.”
Irabor who
said the club has follow up and maintenance solutions for all their facilities
talked about his tenure and what he has been able to do as the president of the
Rotary Club. “In the Rotary agenda we run from July to June, I actually have
about one and half months to round off, but that notwithstanding, we have very
good succession plan, my incoming president will also be here, who is going to
take over from me. During this year 2022/2023 we have had series of projects
lined up for the year, which we have judiciously accomplished. First of all we
had the basic life support training, we have done that very well, it is still
ongoing and the incoming administration is also going to take into consideration
and will continue that. We want to ensure that the people within Ikoyi and its
environs feel safe and they are able to get first aid support whenever they
are. So we trained all the representatives of companies so that they can, at
any point in time, If somebody slumps, he needs emergency, somebody will be
able to attend to them. That is the purpose of the basic life support training,
we called it emergency squad. So that is our star project for this year.
“Beside that
we have organized prostrate screening exercise which we did at the general
hospital about a stone throw from here, and we had cases were they were able to
identify very serious cases and they were referred to appropriate quarters for
attention. So these are the things that we do, we have also organized polio
immunization during the year, it was well attended, we did that at Obalende in
Ikoyi LCDA. We also organized what is called the Golf Tournament, which was a
fund raising event, and then it helped us to generate fund and then create
awareness in the community that we need to have service project in this
community, we have more than 20 projects, and we are just rounding off with
this water and sanitation,” Irabor disclosed.
The Rotary
President explained what the entire project entailed “It is a project we
handled with the global grant like I said. The global grant in a nutshell is
what? The rotary international, they give you opportunity to identify project,
and when you identify project you do the need assessment, you do the costing,
and at the end, if the cost of project is $100, they are ready to give you $50.
So they support you with half of what you are going to do.
Summarizing
the entire cost of the project Irabor said “Now in terms of funding, the
funding is from that global grant, we have a project of about N4.5million and
that is to do what? To be able to refurbish the borehole system, we have to
change and then built up 10 toilet system, and then with corresponding wash
stations, four water tanks with 2,500 liters capacity each. We also changed the
piping systems, because when we came we realized that rather than just turning
on the tap, or when you go to toilet you flush it, the children were using
buckets to fetch water from the ground floor to the second floor, which was a
bit hectic for our children. So we now felt that, yes, the best thing is to
first of all re-pipe all the water circulation system and then provide the
tanks and change the toilets. We renovated the place, changed all the doors,
rebuilt the toilet itself, put all the tiling, and then all the finishing. That
is what we have done and we have also built the wash station where the children
can easily go there, fetch water whenever they want to wash their hands, or do
some washing on the ground floor, but generally there is water everywhere, as
you can see when we went round, all the facilities are working, that is what we
have done,” he concluded.
Rotarian
(Dr) Kamoru Omotosho, Past District Governor, from Rotary Club of Ikoyi,
District 9110, on his part said that what Rotary Club at the school is under
the area of focus, “It is classified under water, sanitation and hygiene, and
we feel that if we are able to look after the children by providing them with
water, their health will be good and they will be able to concentrate on their
education. And apart from just water and sanitation, this particular year we
are focusing girl-child. You see, one of the things that tend to cause
absenteeism from school is when they are doing their menses, so apart from
commissioning, we are also here to distribute to them sanitary pads for their
use.”
Speaking further,
he disclosed that the club do a lot of things on basic education, literacy,
maternal and child health, “These are all areas in focus, sometimes we actually
do things to empower women in their markets, so community empowerment is one of
the things we do. This particular project we are commissioning today is being
replicated in about 15 schools in our own catchment area, that is Lagos and
Ogun that we cover.”
Mrs Williams Adefunke Ashake, Head Teacher of
St Mary’s Girls Primary School, speaking on how she felt, said that the Rotary
Club of Ikoyi has done a great job because she did not expect them to that
much. “To be sincere, I didn’t even expect them to go to this length, when they
came to me the other time, they asked me what is our need? I told them that our
needs are many, and they said there is no problem. I took them round and they
checked everything, pupils’ toilet, staff’s toilet, our borehole, they checked everything,
and they said they will get back to us. I never knew they would come back. To
my surprise when they came, they first came with five big water tanks. They
installed everything, later they came with WC, wash hand basins, washing
machines, two water filters; I was amazed. I said these people they really mean
business. Then they brought their work men, the labourers, painters,
bricklayers, tilers, plumbers, they have done a great work, I didn’t even
expect that they will do more than what I expected, so that is why I said
today, we need to celebrate these people. We know that government cannot do it
alone, at least some NGOs like this, they need to come to the aid of some Lagos
State Government schools. In fact Rotary Club of Ikoyi has tried a lot.”
Speaking on
the health benefits of the intervention by the club in the school she said “The
club tiled all the toilets both the floors and the walls, installed new water
closets, the water is running now, when the children finish using the toilets,
there is a place they can wash their hands now, all these go a long way concerning
their health.”
On measures
to maintain the facilities she said a lot has been put in place to take care of
them. “I have called my staff, and we have told the pupils that these facilities,
they need to take care of them. They need to maintain them to the high level.
Again we have hired one woman that will be monitoring the pupils when they go
to the toilet and when they come out. So we are on ground to make sure the
pupils ensure that these facilities last longer. We have also told the pupils
that they must not pour water on the floor, they don’t need to because the
water closet is working, after they might have finished using the toilet, they
should flush it, they don’t need to take water from somewhere else to go and
flush the toilet, just press the knob the water will flush on its own, then go
to the wash hand basin, wash your hand, there is a napkin there, clean your
hands. We also told them they should not rush in or out whenever they are using
the toilet, they should go there gently,” she revealed.
Mrs Ashake appreciated
the Rotary Club of Ikoyi with kind words, “I say a big thank you to them, I
don’t even know what to say than to say, I am very grateful, they have done a
great job, and I really really thank them from the bottom of my heart, and I
pray that the almighty God will continue to replenish their pockets, wherever
they brought this money from the almighty God will pay them back and their
children in the name of Jesus.”
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