As I described in my post “Bottlenecked in the Bathroom,” we are hoping to upgrade washing, bathing, laundry and general sanitation facilities at the nursing home for elderly and disabled IDPs (internally displaced people) where I am volunteering here in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine.  We would like to have hot running water available for the residents at more than one location in the building. Ideally, we would also like to add another toilet. Currently there is only one toilet for 40 residents. As I’m sure you can imagine, there is often a line of people waiting to use it.  There is also that group of people who just can’t be bothered any more, because when you reach 80 years of age, wearing an adult diaper begins to seem like a reasonable alternative to doing a pee-pee dance while you wait for for the people in line ahead of you to finish their business with the toilet . . .

With these needs and wishes in mind, we went exploring around a little bit, looking for options and alternatives.  This building was constructed in the late 1970s as a village school. A gymnasium was constructed at one end of the building for physical education.  The nursing home folks don’t use the gymnasium, but young people from the local village still often gather there to play volleyball. 

There is also a small dressing room facility tucked in between the gymnasium and the main building.  It has a half-bath (toilet and handwash basin) and two shower stalls. 

Those rooms have not been used for many years, and none of the fixtures are functional now.  But the tile in the shower stalls appears to be sound still, and the drains are still clear.  So just giving those shower stalls a brisk scrub-down and replacing the plumbing and fixtures might make them serviceable.  We asked a building contractor for an estimate.  After looking it over, he assured us all-in labor and materials would come in at something under $2,000 (equivalent value in Ukrainian currency converted to USD). The scope of work includes revamping the half-bath with new fixtures, revamping one of the showers and adjacent dressing room, installing a laundry station with washing machine in the other dressing room/shower space and installing an electric hot water heater. New plumbing and wiring will need to be led in from the main building.

The building contractor was referred to us by the pastor of a local church.  Last year he donated time and materials to do some upgrading work on the second floor of the building, so we are very comfortable working with him. 

The dressing room is only accessible from the main building through a couple of narrow doors, so the revamped dressing room shower will only be accessible to people who are ambulatory.  We will still need to keep the current makeshift shower station (which I described in “Bottlenecked in the Bathroom”), for the people who can’t walk.  The building contractor is looking into the possibility of lowering the drain in the current makeshift shower space, so the shower tray can sit flush with the floor, instead of resting on a wooden frame 12 inches above floor level.  This would allow folks who are confined to wheelchairs to shower much more easily than is currently possible.

If you are interested in helping with these basic sanitation improvements, please take a look at our RAYA Community page.  You can also make a tax-duductible monetary contribution at paypay.me/AmericanYouthAbroad. Thank you for your encouragement and support!