Our Partnership with Just a Drop

Los Calpules School is in a remote area of Nicaragua. The school had latrines, but they were old, unclean, and dilapidated, meaning that the children were often forced to defecate outside rather than use the toilets. This created a serious hygiene and sanitation problem, meaning that there were high levels of diarrhoea, forcing students to miss out on school due to illness.

With Just a Drop, we’ve helped build two double-pit latrines (one for boys and one for girls) and one single pit latrine (for teachers). We’ve also installed handwashing facilities in the school. Having access to clean water and handwashing facilities means that the children will benefit from increased health, improved performance in school and in the long term, improved economic opportunities. As with all Just a Drop’s projects, the community are involved at every stage and will own and maintain the solution.

Our project in Nicaragua with Just a Drop aimed to achieve the following:

• Ensure that the 27 children and staff of Los Calpules School can attend school in a more hygienic environment.
• More children can access an education and have access to toilets and handwashing facilities.
• Girls to benefit as they’ll be able to access adequate toilet facilities when on their periods – enabling them to remain in school and not at risk of dropping out.
• To encourage hygiene practices, such as hand washing, becomes common, leading to long-term health benefits.
• Allow families to have more disposable income as they’re no longer spending money on expensive doctors’ bills.
• Prevent open defecation.

Our upcoming project with Just a Drop will contribute to a larger initiative in Daha Village, Madhya Pradesh in India, where the 323 residents currently access water from a river over a kilometre away. We've now partnered with our Destination Management Company, Distinct Destinations, to raise funds for a water supply installation in the village.

Currently, the burden of fetching water primarily falls on women and girls in the village and its common for them to make several trips a day for several hours - a considerable burden and also severely impacting the time that can be spent in education or employment - keeping them in a cycle of drudgery.

We will be partnering with our Destination Management Company partner Distinct Destination to help fundraise to form part of a wider project of installing a water supply to the village. Building a water supply at the local school and renovate a school sanitation block. For the first time ever, the 323 community members will have sufficient water to drink, cook, wash and clean with.