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Santa Rosa toilet bowl politics…PTA to install sanitary block donated by AFC

Oct 13, 2008 News

More than two weeks after the AFC had donated toilet bowls to a school at Santa Rosa, Education Minister Shaik Baksh is yet to respond to the request from that school’s parent teachers association for him to meet with them to address the issue of the sanitary facilities at the institution.
This is according to Chairman of the PTA, Mark Atkinson, last evening when contacted for an update on the issue.
On October 1, the PTA held an emergency meeting to determine the way forward regarding the issue of the toilets that the Alliance For Change (AFC) had donated, in light of statements reportedly made by the Minister of Education that the PTA should not accept the toilets, and that the party was only looking to score political points.
Atkinson had told this newspaper that it was not a matter of politics, but rather, a matter of the safety of the hundreds of children which attend the school.
He noted, too, that the PTA had issued a call for Baksh to visit the school and hold a meeting with the PTA to tell them something “concrete” as to why they should not accept the donation.
This newspaper, last evening, attempted to contact the minister on his mobile phone for a comment, but was unsuccessful.
Atkinson, last evening, noted that the donated sanitary block will be installed, despite the minister’s objection.
He added that it has not been installed as yet because the group still required some building materials, such as sand and stone, to complete the exercise.
The issue of pit latrines still being used by public schools sparked a heated public debate following nine-year-old Tenesha De Souza’s death,  after she fell into a latrine at Santa Rosa Primary on her first day at school.
After the child died, the PTA issued a call for assistance to install flush toilets at the school, and the AFC responded.
This did not go down well with Minister Baksh, who told media operatives that the AFC would not have been allowed to make the donation to the school, unless it got permission from the school’s management, the Education Department, the Regional Administration and, ultimately, the Ministry of Education.
The minister had said that, while his ministry accepts assistance from international bodies and non-governmental organisations, it “would not allow the AFC to use this as a political agenda for their political objectives and goals… to go into these schools and do what they want.”
Baksh had emphasized that the AFC would have to work along with the established system, and should not be “jumping on the bandwagon, wildly.”
Family members of De Souza had expressed surprise at the comments of the Education Minister, who had said that “pit latrines are adequate for this day and age.”
Grandfather of Tenesha, Marco De Souza, wondered whether (Baksh) ever gave the matter a second thought before commenting.
De Souza noted that Santa Rosa is the oldest and largest Amerindian Mission in Guyana. “Yet, for one reason or the other, this mission is being left behind in many ways. Yanawarin, Waramuri and Assakata Primary Schools have flush toilets, and their school enrollment is much smaller than that of Santa Rosa Primary.”
He noted, too, that the Santa Rosa Primary School compound cannot accommodate any more pit latrines, given that it was a practice for more than 80 years to have pits dug for human waste.
He said that, ever since the tragedy, the primary school students are afraid to go near the pit latrines at the school.

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