Thoo Mweh Khee School for Migrant Children

Mae Sot Vicinity, Thailand

The Mae Sot area, located in central Thailand on the border with Burma, receives a continual flux of migrating peoples – predominantly displaced ethnic minorities affected by ongoing conflict between the Burmese military junta and the many indigenous groups living throughout the region. Every year, thousands of people fleeing violence, detainment, and forced labor cross the border into Thailand or seek asylum in the region’s numerous refugee encampments. Without official documentation, the majority of these migrant peoples cannot travel or work legally in Thailand or enroll their children in Thai schools.

Thoo Mweh Khee School is one of about 60 schools in the Mae Sot vicinity, established by local groups and a coalition of international NGOs, to provide basic education and health services for the children of displaced ethnic minorities and migrant peoples throughout the region. Thoo Mweh Khee is one of the largest schools in the network serving about 400 children, most of indigenous Karen ethnicity, from kindergarten through Grade 10. About half of the students board at the school during the school year and the remainder attend from neighboring villages and refugee settlements.

Like most of these makeshift schools established for migrant children, Thoo Mweh Khee is lacking in basic WASH (water-sanitation-hygiene) infrastructure. Water supply for drinking and other uses is inadequate throughout much of the year and sanitation conditions are poor (e.g. septic tanks overflow into open ditches on the property, resulting in a high incidence of disease especially during the monsoon season).

Currently the school spends US $150 per month to purchase drinking water and an additional US $100-200 per month for maintenance of septic systems. An estimated US $75-100 is spent per month on electricity for pumping water from a shallow well for domestic use. The well is at high risk of chemical and septic contamination and evaporates completely during the driest part of the year. Thus, out of the school’s monthly budget of US $2,000 (including teachers’ salaries), US $300-500 (15-25%) is spent providing basic water and sanitation – services which are still, however, inadequate.

Aqueous Solutions has partnered with Thoo Mweh Khee School, and local public health NGOs to design, implement and monitor a multi-component water and eco- sanitation system for the school. Aqueous is working with volunteers, school administrators, teachers, local NGOs to create a holistic WASH design integrating multiple aspects of water supply, water treatment, eco-sanitation, and hygiene education.

System components include:

• Rainwater harvesting, solar disinfection/pasteurization, and multiple-media (gravel-charcoal-sand) filtration to provide clean water for drinking and kitchen uses.
• Improvements to wells and a solar-powered water pump system to improve water supply for all needs while alleviating the expense and dependence upon an erratic electricity supply.
• Dry composting toilets to reduce water stress, improve sanitary conditions and reduce incidence of disease, and provide valuable fertilizer for the school’s gardens and fruit trees.
• Greywater systems (e.g. constructed wetlands) to improve local ecology and public health by treating effluent from kitchen and bathing/clotheswashing areas.
• “Tippy-taps” hand-washing stations to improve hygiene practices, accompanied by hygiene educational curricula and soapmaking.

Because Thoo Mweh Khee is centrally located and one of the largest schools in the network, it is a focus of the migrant community. Meetings of teachers, staff and NGO workers are often held there, as are large events involving multiple schools. Thus projects to improve water quality and supply not only provide a service to the school but also present significant demonstration value for dissemination of aesthetic, inexpensive, ecologically sustainable, self-reliant techniques in WASH.

Construction of components such as composting toilets are undertaken in a workshop format, as this provides opportunity to showcase and teach a number of natural building techniques (adobe, cob, wattle-and-cob, natural plasters, paints and finishes made from local clays, etc.). Workshops on composting and gardening, and the proper treatment and use of human excreta compost, are held with school children and community members.

Aqueous Solutions and our local partners are working with Thoo Mweh Khee and other schools in the network to facilitate workshops and trainings in WASH appropriate technology serving the greater migrant community in the Mae Sot region.