More schools ask than we can build for. Four questions decide which one comes next.
Every year about twenty principals write to us. We build for two or three. This is how we decide, so that the schools who wait know why.
Is there safe water within reach?
If the school already has a working connection to a town water line, or a safe well on the grounds, it does not need us. We build where pupils carry water or go without.
Can the roof do the work?
We need at least 100 square metres of sound roof, in iron sheet or tile, that can take a gutter. Ramil visits and measures. Some schools need roof repairs first; we help them ask the municipality for those.
Will someone look after it?
A tank lasts twenty years if someone cleans the gutters and changes the filter. We ask for one teacher and one parent to be named as keepers, and we train them on the first maintenance day.
Can we get there?
Some islands can only be reached in calm weather. That does not rule a school out, but it changes the plan: the tank goes in the calm months, and we leave more spare parts behind.
Then we decide together
Our board reviews the surveys every quarter. A school chosen for the next year gets a campaign, and its principal gets a letter with a start date. Habagat, on Dinagat, is the school chosen this year.
What a survey looks like
A survey takes a full day. Ramil measures the roofs and checks the sheets, nails and fascia boards. Joy meets the principal and the parents’ association and asks how water reaches the school now, who carries it and how far. Celso tests whatever water the pupils drink today, so we can compare it with the tank water a year later.
We write it all up in four pages and send a copy to the principal, whether or not the school is chosen. Several schools have used the survey to ask their municipality for a connection, and two got one.
What we ask of a school
We ask the parents to help: carrying materials from the boat, mixing concrete for the tank base, feeding the volunteers on build days. It is not a condition, but schools that build with us look after the tank better afterwards.
If your school is waiting
Write to Joy. We keep every survey, and when a school moves up the list, we tell it first.
