On Friday we told you that the villagers of Lucky Strike were not happy with the toilet facilities at the village school. Well today they gave action to anger when they protested on the school grounds. But by the time they got there the steam of their charge had been released. That is because the Ministry of Education contractors had speedily completed all the repairs to the toilet facilities in just one weekend. But the residents were still not content because of the long neglect by officials and the standard of the facility and so they continued with their protest.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
If this structure looks like it was recently completed it's because it was. Residents of the Lucky Strike community say that over the years they have been battling a dilapidated, unsanitary structure that used to service 120 school children.
Today however, after a work crew came in the bathroom on the school grounds was simply sparkling. A weekend job ensured that it was painted, the doors were changed, the seats inside the bathroom were changed, these old sheets of zinc were replaced with brand new ones and even the locks were changed. This, the residents say is a cover for long standing neglect and unsanitary conditions that the children have had to endure over the past. To demonstrate their dissatisfaction they gathered at the school grounds, holding placards as they made their way to the source of their ire.
Oscar Pollard, Village Chairman
"To me it's a insult to the community. On Saturday evening they sent three or four guys out here who dashed paint on the place and did a hurry job because I went to Belize City and met with Love FM, Channel 7, and Channel 5 because we are upset about the conditions and we know the health hazards are very very high."
Donalda Jones, Villager
"They painted it yesterday, they painted it on a Sunday, because they knew that we were bringing you guys out here because we said it from last week and that is why the building was painted yesterday but that toilet is not appropriate."
But while the villagers say the toilet is not appropriate, today the District Education Officer Francis Baizer along with a health inspector Bernaldo Bay visited the school and the toilet to give it their stamp of approval.
Bernaldo Bay Sr., Health Inspector
"It is not the best like a flush system toilet but it has been repaired and it is good to be used."
Francis Baizar, District Education Officer
"We've had complaints about it before and that is why we have done what we need to do about it. I have spoken to the Chairman time and time again and told him that we are working on it and we have done it and I've come with the Health Inspector to see if its in shape and that is all I have to say pertaining to that."
And while that was all Baizer would have to say about that, it is not the same for the villagers and in particular the village Chairman Oscar Pollard who says that it is only a matter of time before the problem presents itself again.
Oscar Pollard,
"The condition of the bathroom was really really bad. I personally have been out here from the initial start of it. We took out 3,000 gallons of fluid out of it, the entire structure was broken up, and when I say broke up I mean out of use, and it has been like that for the past eight months. The condition is that I personally took it up after the teacher sent in several letters to the Ministry of Education about the condition of the bathroom. We got a correspondence from the Ministry of Education stating that Lucky Strike and Santa Martha, they have visited, and they will refurbish the facility because they noted the conditions they observed. At the end of the time when school closed nothing was done.
We agreed to put in six sewerage, two basins, a urinal, and to extend the top of the building outward and close it and have proper privacy for the children them. After one month, I heard the Minister on radio saying a proper sewerage is being built, after a call was made by the President of the PTA, and that wasn't so. Mr. Bay personally told us that the situation isn't nice but the kids can use it to sit down on right now. We haven't said they can't sit down on it but we look on two weeks down the road when the pickney they started to vomit because they started to vomit and we didn't know what caused it and we assumed this was what caused it. We need a proper structure and as the Chairman, and with the support of the communities who this school serve, we won't sit here and let them put us back in our granny days sitting down on those old things."
Donalda Jones,
"We applied for it from last year when we were talking about it. They put us off and put us off and this year for summer they told us they would fix it. The school is qualified by NEMO as a hurricane shelter and for sure you don't have any toilet facilities in there, not even for one person. When school opened they brought up two of Carlos Diaz's canned food toilet and they had that toilet here for two or four days before they cleaned it. They claimed that one toilet is equivalent for 20 children. We have 120 children here and if they know a little bit of math they will know how much toilets we needed. We don't need those pan toilets, we need proper toilets. We had an outbreak of vomiting of loose stools last week and several children from here had vomiting and loose stools. Government doesn't pay us any mind and they feel like we are still cleaning with leaves and corn cob but we use toilet paper and we have common sense. They believe that is so because we live at bush but that is not right, that is not right."
And now that these residents have started their campaign for better treatment and better, more sanitary bathroom facilities they say they will not stop until they get exactly what they are asking for, even if it means shutting down the school.
Oscar Pollard,
"We aren't stopping. Tomorrow it will be more crowd out here, more activity because we have a couple kids in the school but tomorrow we don't want to see none and Wednesday we will load a bus and go to the Prime Minister's office so they will have to have more police because we won't go to come back empty handed, we will go to come back with a solution to the problem. The school will remain closed. When we get the proper facilities here, then the school will go back to normal."
So maybe the sights like these of opened classrooms with very few children inside or none at all may become something the ministry of education will have to get used to, that is if these residents don't get what they deem to be the proper toilet facilities for their children.
Of note is that Lucky Strike Village currently does not have potable water and neither does the school. The children do not have a place to wash their hands after they use the bathroom other than a single vat that during the dry season runs dry. The Ministry of Education today issued a release in which it states that what has been installed at the school is a major improvement to what was there before.
