Bush Loo’s in the Northern Territory

Project

The Nawarddeken Academy is made up of three full-time and bi-cultural schools located at Kabulwarnamyo, Mamardawerre and Manmoyi, Indigenous Protected Area’s (IPA) in West Arnhem Land.

Each campus hosts an early learning centre and a primary school, with full-time teachers employed who work beside Bininj Elders as cultural professors, and community members to support bi-cultural learning.

A key infrastructure challenge for the Nawarddeken Academy has been ensuring access to safe and clean sanitation facilities due to the remoteness of the academy. With Darwin a 10-hour drive on dirt road and the wet season cutting off the area from local towns, it presents a unique challenge for the community.

The plumbing facilities at the Manmoyi school were frequently unusable due to the wet season and required high levels of maintenance. Students were sent home if they needed to go to the toilet. At the Manadawerre school there were existing drop toilets, but the pits were full and there were difficulties to get trucks in to empty the pits.

Outcomes

New purpose-built drop toilets were built at Manmoyi and Manadawerre which are better able to meet the needs of Nawarddeken students and staff.

Students now have consistent access to clean toilets that are also suitable for the harsh remote environment. Collectively, the toilets will directly benefit 60 school children and 20 school teachers, and indirectly benefit up to 20-25 people from the community who use the school facilities yearly for community events.

The toilets are designed to be moveable, enabling them to be transported from one location to another once the pit is full, addressing the need to rebuild the facilities each time. They are easily maintained by staff and rangers on the ground, removing expensive maintenance that can only take place in the dry season. By ensuring this maintenance and relocation can be done locally, Nawarddeken are able to provide local jobs, and ensure that investment in infrastructure supports a local economy.