Location
Maha Sarakham Province, Thailand
Community Description
Nong Gae School serves students from four small villages in rural Northeast Thailand. The area of these villages comprises roughly 165 households, nearly all of which rely on rice farming for their primary income.
These villages are connected to the outside world by gravel roads, and their rice-based income makes them heavily reliant on good weather for their livelihood. In a region that is often plagued by droughts and floods, the people have had to deal with many bad years and often must depend on secondary occupations, such as raising mushrooms or weaving silk, or must travel away from home and work as hired labor in more fertile regions.
Still, these communities have a strong dedication to the education of their children and to Nong Gae School. Recently the school was able to raise enough money from community member donations to build a new one-room kitchen so that the students’ meals could be prepared under more sanitary conditions.
Parents and community leaders also come to meetings to help plan the
school’s future and for holiday celebrations and other activities that the school holds.
Over 200 people live in Nong Gae Village, and the combined usage of preparing meals, washing clothes, using restrooms, watering gardens, etc. uses so much of the water supply that by the time the pipes reach the school, a fully-opened water spout often merely drips.
In recent months community members donated to the school once again to help build a water tower on the school grounds. Currently the school shares a single water tower with the nearby Nong Gae Village, but this water source is simply not enough to supply both the village and the school.
Project Description
This project is to build a new water tower for the school, and connect it to the piping that already runs through the school.
The community has already raised about $1,500, and, under the direction of the school staff, the project was started. The metal structure of the tower and four large water tanks to hold the water have already been purchased and are sitting in the schoolyard, waiting for the rest of the materials so that they can be put up.
Project funds will be used to purchase the necessary materials and equipment. These include concrete for the foundation, a pump to get water up to the tower, and PVC pipes and metal beams to support the structure.
Project Impact
This project will benefit 268 people, including the 60 people who spend their day at Nong Gae School and the 208 villagers living nearby, who will gain better access to water (since they will no longer be competing with the school for limited resources).
Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Beau Gambold
Comments
With the new water tower, students and staff at the school will have abundant drinking water, as well as be able to prepare meals, wash hands and dishes, use the restrooms and water the school’s garden without having to wait for water to drip slowly out.
It is often seen that an extremely necessary project remains dormant for lack of a small amount of money to complete it. This is a great example of how a project by a dedicated community can be enabled.
Dollar Amount of Project
$500.00
Donations Collected to Date
$500.00
Dollar Amount Needed
$0.00 – This project has now been fully funded, through the generosity of The Soneva SLOW LIFE Trust as a part of their Clean Water Projects initiative.
We encourage others to continue to donate using the Donate button below, and we will notify Peace Corps Volunteer Beau Gambold of your donation. Additional funds will be used to fund the next project by Beau and/or those of his counterpart PCVs in Thailand.
This project has been finished. To read about the conclusion of the project, CLICK HERE.