The Yangon campus has a new septic tank

The Yangon campus has a new septic tank

Septic tank at the Yangon campus

What happened?

Before we focus on the outcome of this project, it might help if we gave you some background information first.

In the past, the Mission2Myanmar (M2M) sent money to David Ling, the owner of the Yangon campus, to enable David to install a rainwater tank and a water purification system at the campus. Due to these developments, the staff and students were fit and healthy because they had access to clean drinking water during the dry season.

There were some unexplained illnesses at the campus during the wet season. If truth be told, most of those illnesses were caused by water-borne infections. Finding the root cause of the water-borne infections was not easy.

 

So what was the cause of the problem?

Eventually David concluded that the cause of the water-borne infections was the harmful microbes from the students' toilets. During the dry season there was no need for alarm because the microbes, from human waste, stayed in the ground. However, during the wet season, the river swelled and flooded the campus. By raising the water level, the flood water lifted the microbes from the ground and then, the children became sick because they had to walk through the flood waters mixed with harmful microbes.

 

Short chronology of donations

In early 2021 David received a generous donation from a donor in Brisbane, to enable him to start building a septic tank. This happened before M2M became a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) for tax purposes.  The ultimate reason for building a septic tank is to make sure that all the microbes that get flushed down the toilets, stays deep down in the ground. To eliminate the risk of water-borne infections, those microbes must never rise to the surface especially during the wet season.

In the middle of 2021 M2M received a corporate donation, which was directed to the septic tank project.  This happened after the Australian government gave M2M the green light to become a DGR. David received this funding just before the heaviest monsoonal rainfall started.

 

What happened after the wet season ended?

Sometime in November 2021, the wet season ended and the flood waters receded. Then after that, David recalled the construction workers to complete the septic tank project.

 

The outcome

The septic tank was successfully completed in early January 2022. It will be connected to a new toilet block, hopefully before the next wet season begins.

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