Girls’ Health and Hygiene Project Proposal – Kasthurbha Gandhi Kanya Gurukulam School – TAYMAI Grant Winner – $1500
Shreya Ramesh is a rising senior at Milton High School and has been actively involved with TNF for the past 2 years. She interned at Kasthurbha Gandhi Kanya Gurukulam, Vedaranyam and Ashok Nagar School, Chennai in 2018. At school, she is a part of the debate team, Science Olympiad, and quiz bowl teams. In her free time, she enjoys watching movies and YouTube videos about random science topics and food.
The issue Shreya is addressing with the request for TAYMAI Grant is the lack of sanitary napkins and lack of other hygienic products in rural School girls in Tamil Nadu, India. The main project would done to solve the issue of providing the necessary education for underprivileged students as well as providing sustainable measures to ensure that all students to have access to pads.
Provide Sanitary Napkins for rural students in Kasthurbha Gandhi Kanya Gurukulam High school to prevent girl student dropouts & missing school. Cloth pads is an option, which students use 5-6 fabric pads during their period, and only need to be washed and reused. Cloth pads can last for 3-5 years (75 washes), making this option more sustainable as well. This will benefit 300 students in the school hostel. Approx cost of the project – Rs. 471,000 / $7000.
Drinking & Clean Bathroom Water for Palakkapalayam GHSS – TAYMAI Grant Winner $1000
Here is Meghna on her motivation for applying for the TAYMAI Grant –“The philanthropic project I would like to begin is the Clean Bathroom-Water Project. In the summer of 2018, I went to Palakkapalayam, Namakkal Dt., and interned at Palakkapalaym GHSS. I saw there was no bathroom facility at the school and they only had one water pipe for the whole school. So, washing dishes for food, cleaning up after using the bathroom, water for drinking all came out from that pipe. They were using one source of water which might be purified or not purified which can lead to health problems. They also had no bathroom facility which can be very difficult for girls. Having clean water sources and bathroom facilities is very important for the hygiene of the students.”
Installation of commercial grade water filter for drinking water and water tank for bathroom use water, along with plumbing and bathroom taps. There is no bathroom facility in this school and there is only one tap for the whole school. Approx cost of the project – Rs. 185,000 / $2750.
Drinking Water for Besant Theosophical school – TAYMAI Grant Winner – $500
Here is Ananya on why she wanted to apply for the TAYMAI Grant – “When I interned at the Besant Theosophical school, Chennai in the summer 2016, I got the opportunity to meet children of a completely different background than me. Most of the students here were children of fisherman or servant maids. I felt that I had to do something to help them.” She talked to the TNF Project coordinator and came up with the idea of installing Commercial Grade Water Filter.
The students have very limited access to clean water at the school, with only one filter serving largely the working staff at the school. The new water filter system will make drinkable water available to all 800 students. Lack of clean drinking water is a very basic problem is many schools in Chennai. Lack of water causes dehydration especially in the harsh Chennai heat. Unclean water causes several water borne diseases. This project could prevent several cases of both the above problems. And that is why it is important. The budget would 120,000 rupees. There is little maintenance that will need to be done to keep the water filter. The anticipated start date would be mid-July of 2019. Approx cost of the project – Rs. 120,000 / $1750.
