Fee waiver, clean toilets: Alphonsus does it for girls

By Y. Maheshwara Reddy | NT

Bengaluru: If you walked into St. Alphonsus High School in Richards Town even a few weeks ago, you wouldn’t have seen a single female student. A byword in the neighbourhood for its unhygienic, unclean restrooms, parents had withdrawn their daughters en masse rather than risk exposing them to infection from using unclean restrooms. The standards of hygiene on the school premises were abysmal. Today, at St. Alphonsus High School, it’s a different story! The girl students are back. The toilets have been repaired.

Things changed when Rev Dr John Mathew took over as the school’s manager. He noted, with concern, that the building was falling apart – the girls’ toilets would often overflow as students, who could not afford sanitary napkins used pieces of cloth instead and flushed them down the drain. There was no drinking water, benches or even shutters on the windows. Naturally, parents shied away from sending their children here, especially their daughters. Rev. Mathew knew something had to be done and appealed to the local community. The Richards Town Residents’ Welfare Association came forward at once, along with other philanthropists and donors. “Parents no longer need to worry about their daughters being here,” Rev Mathew smiles