After undergoing renovations for over a year, the Carleton University Students’ Association’s (CUSA) ablutions room is a month away from being completed.
The ablutions room is located down the hall from the Multi-Faith Centre’s prayer room on the second floor of the University Centre. The ablutions room is used by students who need to wash themselves before prayer.
The renovations are to include four accessible foot bath units in the men’s ablution room, located within the men’s bathroom. The renovations for the women’s ablution space, which is located within the women’s washroom, will still lack an accessible foot bath after.
Fahd Alhattab, president of CUSA, said the renovations will be complete by April 21, “give or take a few days.”
According to Alhattab, the renovations cost about $180,000, the entirety of which is coming from CUSA’s budget. He said CUSA is trying to get Carleton to match their funding for the renovations.
“I think the changes are great, but we need more leadership from the university,” Alhattab said.
“The men’s bathroom was a disaster and is getting the biggest renovation,” he said. “We are tearing down and opening up the men’s bathroom to add four new wash areas, and updating the women’s bathroom.”
According to Alhattab, the renovations were needed.
“The ventilations in the men’s bathroom didn’t work, the tiles were cracking, and the taps were not working well,” he said. “The changes will make the men’s and women’s bathroom’s fully accessible to meet the standards of the Ontario Disability Act.”
Currently the ablutions facilities in the women’s bathroom does have foot baths, but it is not accessible for persons with disabilities.
According to Alhattab, the renovations will not rebuild the women’s ablutions room to create new foot baths. Instead, the renovations will make the existing foot baths, and the bathroom as a whole, more accessible.
Alhattab said CUSA received a lot of complaints about the women’s foot baths as being “useless.” According to the complaints, a lot of women could not use the foot baths because the area where the baths are located is right by the door into the washroom, and can be made visible to anyone passing by.
“For the women’s bathroom, we are adding sliding doors, putting in stools to sit on and making the taps better angled,” Alhattab said
Ahmed Hassan, president of the Carleton Muslim Students’ Association (CMSA), said via email that the project had been in the negotiations phase for more than two years.
“There has always been a need for an accessible ablution space on and off campus. In a survey of the ablution spaces across the city, we found that an accessible foot bath was lacking in all major mosques visited,” Hassan said.
According to Alhattab, the CMSA was consulted the whole time.
“The consultation phase, getting the different parts approved, bidding, and finding a construction company was a difficult process in many aspects,” Alhattab said.
“You don’t want to spend close to $200,000 and not have it be useful to students,” he said.
According to Alhattab, students are currently using the regular bathrooms to clean themselves before praying.
“This issue has been a problem for many years, which is kind of a shame for a school that prides itself on being accessible,” he added.
– Photo by Amy Yee
