In the communities where we work right now, the vast majority of people don't have toilets in their homes, and they do understand the importance of using toilets. Right now, the government offers a reimbursement program for families who build a toilet for their house, but most people cannot afford this upfront cost and see corruption diminish the amount (if/when) they're paid back. Another big issue is land ownership - if families don't own the land they live on, this significant investment doesn't make a lot of financial sense. We see our role standing in solidarity with Indians making these tough decisions with incredible social, health, and economic outcomes.
You rightly pointed out maintenance as another key issue! We sell safe drinking water from our sites and use that revenue to pay for the facility to be cleaned 2x a day and maintained by our staff. We're tracking daily toilet users and see that people use our facility consistently.
There is definitely still social stigma connecting handling human waste and those at the bottom of the caste system. Our model is designed with this understanding. Waste is disposed of directly from the toilet pan into our biogas digester to decompose, so no humans have to handle the waste. We've also have hired members of these communities to work with us, and have seen them promoted and earning more money than the would in another other role.
If you are interested in learning more about the cultural and societal implications of open defecation, you can also check out a video series we helped put together last summer. The focus/perspective falls on rural Indians (naturally, the real cultural experts on the matter of open defecation). Videos feature folks working to increase access to toilets, a drama troupe doing grassroots education work, and women talking about their personal experiences.
http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/giveashit/
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We also value the civic engagement component of our work! We've seen the members of the communities where we work to be highly motivated to advocate for themselves to get their local representatives to build the toilets as promised in Swachh Bharat.
Definitely agree! As the article mentions, simply tracking the number of toilets built is not enough. We track daily toilet users at each site and couple access to toilets with access to safe drinking water because our goal is to see long-term improved health outcomes!
I definitely agree that the community is integral in implementing long-term solutions. We believe that access to toilets is a right, and so our mission is to fight alongside these communities to realize access to this sanitation infrastructure. Community input starts with identifying the right location to put the facility (we focus on rural areas where the space is not an issue). Community members petition to get Indian government land handed over for us to build on, and local community members are the folks hired to run the facilities.
In the communities where we work right now, the vast majority of people don't have toilets in their homes, and they do understand the importance of using toilets. Right now, the government offers a reimbursement program for families who build a toilet for their house, but most people cannot afford this upfront cost and see corruption diminish the amount (if/when) they're paid back. Another big issue is land ownership - if families don't own the land they live on, this significant investment doesn't make a lot of financial sense. We see our role standing in solidarity with Indians making these tough decisions with incredible social, health, and economic outcomes.
You rightly pointed out maintenance as another key issue! We sell safe drinking water from our sites and use that revenue to pay for the facility to be cleaned 2x a day and maintained by our staff. We're tracking daily toilet users and see that people use our facility consistently.
There is definitely still social stigma connecting handling human waste and those at the bottom of the caste system. Our model is designed with this understanding. Waste is disposed of directly from the toilet pan into our biogas digester to decompose, so no humans have to handle the waste. We've also have hired members of these communities to work with us, and have seen them promoted and earning more money than the would in another other role.