Improved sanitation at Sincobile high school

Mpumalanga province, South Africa

The International Inkomati Cooperation Programme aims to promote sustainable use of the Inkomati Basin water through improvement of sanitation issues. The programme is funded by the Royal Dutch Embassy in Pretoria, and a twinning agreement between the regional water authority Waterschap Groot Salland and Inkomati Catchment Management Agency, including the Nkomazi Local Municipality supported by the Association of the Netherlands Municipalities (VNG International) with the Zwolle and Dalfsen Municipalities. Within this programme LeAF has assisted in developing an improvement plan for sanitation for one of the schools in the region.

Sincobile Secondary School is situated in Mpumalanga province, block C, Komatipoort, 35 km from the Mozambique Border, and 30 km from the Swaziland border. It was established in 1998 and caters for children from the farms and informal settlements. The school has 970 students (amongst them are 92 orphaned and/or vulnerable children) and 37 educators. The area is very hot and dry can reach temperatures as high as 37 degrees Celsius in summer.

The school has insufficient sanitation at this moment. The existing toilets, in high number and good conditions, are not in operation because of insufficient and discontinuous water supply for flushing. There are three septic tanks (also not in operation) with a total volume of approximately 90 m3. The students make use of just few pit latrines.

Regarding a feeding program the programme plans to establish a supervised food garden in order to enrich the pupils diet with fruits, vegetables and herbs. The sanitation concepts which focus at resource recovery are currently being worked out. The following elements of sanitation improvement at Sincobile are considered:

• partial) urine diversion, storage and reuse for the school garden;
• anaerobic digestion of concentrated black water for biogas generation;
• utilisation of biogas for cooking purposes, instead of wood;
• rainwater harvesting for irrigation of the school garden;
• hand washing facilities with reuse of wash water.

Watch the inspiring movie of the first results of the new sanitation on Sincobile High School