LECSA Schools Commode Project

Lesotho Evangelical Church in Southern Africa

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The project will be ongoing.  As funds become available, additional commodes will be purchased and installed at schools.  The costs of building the commodes are (per commode):

Digging of the pit                    $100

Cost of commode                    $375

Transportation                        $40 – $120

Assembly/Installation             $15

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Total                                        $530 – $650 per commode

Update: August 2018

In a recent update from LECSA, the church has installed 30 new commodes in six schools since the beginning of this project. The commodes are located in five different primary schools and the Morija Theological Seminary. The project costs includes the installation, transportation, and materials. A local team in Morija installed each of the commodes, which includes digging the pits prior to delivery, assembly, and placement for each location.

Depending on the location and the cost of transporting the commode, each commode costs approximately $500-$600 to construct. Since the Education Department of LECSA purchases and transports the commodes from South Africa, they purchase 15 commodes at one time. The cost of one order containing 15 commodes totals $8,000 for the transportation, material, and installation of all 15 commodes.

Update: November 2019

As of October 2019, the Lesotho Evangelical Church in Southern Africa (LECSA) has completed another round of installing Amalooloo-style restrooms for rural schools in Lesotho. This is part of their ongoing School Restroom Project. Over the past year, the church installed 10 new toilets at three different schools. Due to the rural locations of these schools, the installation of toilets required four-wheel-drive trucks to get the toilets to the location of each school. The schools receiving toilets this year are situated in very rocky locations. This required the church to rent equipment to dig holes for the tanks that were deep enough to provide sanitary conditions. Because the circumstances are difficult, these remote schools do not receive infrastructure improvement often, but now these three schools all have hygienic toilets for their students. For the next year of this project, LECSA’s Education Office has identified several schools in the Qacha’s Nek area as a priority for receiving school restrooms through this project. This is a remote area of Lesotho, however, it is also a region with many schools without restrooms.

Global Ministries is grateful for the support received for this project and welcomes new gifts for this ongoing project.

Update: April 2022

The LECSA is prioritizing the provision of useable toilets for their schools. The money raised for this project will be used for the purchase, delivery, assembly, and installation of Amalooloo commodes at LECSA schools. The Amalooloo system is a dry aerobic composting sanitation system, and avoids many disadvantages of standard pit toilets, which have a limited usefulness and can become health hazards.

This project has had several starts and stops due to COVID-19 related shutdowns. In addition, due to the shutdowns, communications with the supplier in South Africa was increasingly difficult. The project continues to be a priority, and the Education Office has identified five rural and remote primary schools: Mosututsoana Primary School, Thaba-Litsoene Primary School, Melikane Primary School, Mosenekeng Primary School, and Tsoelike Primary School. All five of these primary schools currently do not have toilets.

In addition, when speaking to the supplier, the price of each toilet has increased significantly since the last order. Therefore, LECSA is looking into ordering two toilets for each school, with hopes to deliver and install toilets at all five schools.