After completing my graduation, I decided to venture into the social sector. I joined Tata Trusts as a “Zila Swachh Bharat Prerak” to work as a consultant on Swachh Bharat Mission.
New into the rural environment, I had little understanding of the population I was there to serve. As a team, the first hurdle we encountered was lack of willingness among people to build individual toilets in their houses despite the government offering them financial aid. We decided to start an awareness program by using United Nations reports and statistics to motivate the behaviour change in the district. The idea fell flat when I realised that logical deductions have little value in the grassroots. Therefore, we tried to take the route of emotional appeal.
We devised a community engagement exercise where we gradually “Trigger” the community by bringing women into the forefront on the issue of sanitation behaviour. We made the community realise that the women are the worst hit due to lack of toilets. It is question of women’s dignity and yet the men of the village are turning a blind eye, thereby forcing the women of their own homes to bear embarrassment of defecating in the open. This was also a reason for a lot of mischiefs happening in the village.
This was a huge risk as we had hit the pride of the community. The situation got worse when there were altercations with the Swachh Bharat Team and the villages due to this. Threats were issued in the district against the Swachh Bharat Team. This was a big blow to the mission. We were under severe pressure both from the village communities to not show up again; as well as the State Mission to meet the desired ODF targets as soon as possible.
We decided to go ahead with the plan of bringing women into the forefront of the mission. The strategy worked when in other villages, women took it upon themselves to build individual toilets in their homes. We recognised these sparks of behaviour change and decided to felicitate the women as champions of Swachhta Abhiyan. The event was covered by the local media and the movement gathered momentum.
In the coming weeks, we were able to achieve Open Defecation Free(ODF) status for 57 villages.
