Imagine: Latrines in 2008 in schools

Sep 05, 2008 Features / Columnists

– Death of Tanesha De Souza

Peter R. Ramsaroop, MBA

INTRODUCTION:
This was one of the saddest weeks for me when it comes to our young children. Imagine what our school children have to face every day in this school year, nasty toilets and latrines. I have harped about this all summer that we need to fix the toilets in the schools prior to the beginning of this school year.
These are the days, where government collects billions of dollars of our VAT money, 75% more than they wanted, yet they are able to live with their conscience of a nine-year-old falling to her death in a latrine on the first day of school. The death of this young child in the Northwest should wake up all of us as parents to march to our schools and demand that our children are protected.
CONCLUSION:
This is by far my shortest column ever written, in order to emphasize this terrible tragedy. Most of us as parents would rather take our children in the grass than have them sit on the toilets and unbelievably, we still have latrines in our primary and secondary schools. We treat our children in the interior much worse than in the city, at least, thankfully, those in the city have moved from the latrines to toilets. However, there is no water for them to wash their hands. When last have you visited your children’s school and inspected the facilities. When the children go out to the washrooms they do not have any potable water to practice safe hygiene. A child spends most of the day in school, not at home.
The death of one of our own, nine-year-old Tanesha De Souza is a crying shame. Her blood is on the hands of those that we elected to serve us. Where is our VAT money going? There is no economics without the future of today’s children

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