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Case writeshop: A method to capture tacit knowledge from practitioners

The writeshop methodology has captured the stories of the work done by practitioners from different organizations. The knowledge on what works and under what condition and with what combinations of strategies is an important element that any practitioner would be interested to know and learn from. The capturing of this ‘tacit’ knowledge (knowledge that is presently available with the practitio-ners) and converting them to ‘instrumental’ knowledge is what this compilation aimed at. The author is sure that the output will certainly help promote better practices of those involved with similar interventions elsewhere.

A compendium of best practices from Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh

“The Struggles and Successes” People's voices on WASH

Best Practices

©Jal Seva Charitable Foundation, January 2014

Author and editor:

Nabarun Sen Gupta

Cover Photo:

WaterAid, Bhopal

Acknowledgements:

Support from Mr. Sreekanth for his imaginative creation and depicting the interventions through sketches and Mr. Sibaji Bose for language editing is greatly acknowledged. Feedback from Indira Khurana*, Mathew Luckose (WaterAid) and Jasmine Ahirwar (WaterAid) helped for strengthening the document is greatly appreciated.

Design and Production:

Impress, 1805 Second Floor, Street No- 9, Govindpuri Extension, New Delhi 110 019

Published by:

Jal Seva Charitable Foundation

403, 4th Floor, CNI Bhavan,

16, Pandit Pant Marg,

New Delhi- 110 001

India

Supported by

* Formerly in WaterAid

Contents

WASH Programmes: People Centric Approaches .............................................................................. 01Nabarun Sen Gupta

Towards Development: A case of woman leader and WASH ....................................... 05Sunil Kajur and Rajkumar Patel

Empowered Community Works Wonders: A community-led initiative to make ‘freedom from open defecation’ the Mantra ...........13Sujata Tirkey and Jitendra Parmar

Women drive civic administration to deliver: Case of slum improvement in Urban Indore .......................................................... 21Reeta Lahiri and Charusheela Morya

An alternative technology on sanitation: Ecosan in action ........................................ 31Taukeer Ahmed

Insuring against Fluoride: Case of community led and management fluorosis reduction intervention ................... 39Omprakash Patidar and Amit Sen

Village level people's institution leads the process: Intervention of a piped water scheme ................................................................ 47Vijay Singh and Deepak Yadav

The making of Gram Swaraj: A case of Gram Sabha ensuring water security and open defecation free village ............55Santoshi Tiwari and Ranu Katiyar

The power of collective action .......................................................................... 65Narad Tembhukar and Bharatram Mandvi

Water gives power ......................................................................................... 71Mohsin Ali and Deepak Patel

No more tears: A sanitation programme leads to smokeless cooking ........................... 81Vineet Saraswat

Biography .................................................................................................... 91

Facilitating Team ........................................................................................... 91

Support Team ............................................................................................... 91

Abbreviations

APL Above Poverty Line

BGMS Bharatiya Gramin Mahila Sangh

BPL Below Poverty Line

CARMDAKSH Centre for Action Research and Management for Developing Attitude Knowledge Skill in Human Resource

CBO Community Based Organization

CG Chhattisgarh

ECOSAN Ecological Sanitation

Ha Hectare

HDI Human Development Index

IEC Information Education and Communication

IHHL Individual Household Latrine

IMR Infant Mortality Rate

LSS Lokshakti Samaj Sewi Sanstha

LSS-R Lok Shakti Samiti (Raigadh)

MDG Milliennium Development Goal

MLA Member of Legislative Assembly

MMR Maternal Mortality Rate

MGNREGS Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employement Gurantee Scheme

MPW Multi Purpose Workers

MP Madhya Pradesh

NBA Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan

NGO Non Government Organisation

NGP Nirmal Gram Puraskar

O & M Operation and Maintenance

OBC Other Backward Castes

PHED Public Health and Engineering Department

PMGSY Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana

PPSA Poverty Pocket Situation Analysis

PRIs Panchayati Raj Institutions

PRIA Participatory Research in Asia

RCC Reinforced Cement Concrete

SC Scheduled Castes

SDO Sub Divisional Officer

SHGs Self Help Groups

ST Scheduled Tribes

TSC Total Sanitation Campaign

UN United Nations

VWSC Village Water and Sanitation Committee

WASH Water Sanitation and Hygiene

People Centric Approaches

1

People Centric Approaches

Learning's from WASH interventionsNabarun Sen Gupta

This book is a synthesis of experiences from interventions on drinking water and sanitation where people have led the changes, towards improved access to water and sanitation. The interventions have been facilitated by local Civil Society Organisation working in partnership with WaterAid India. The partners of WaterAid India from the states of Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Chhattisgarh (CG) sat together to reflect on these issues and the experiences and have documented the process, the outcomes and the lessons. This booklet is an attempt in documenting the lessons for the use of practitioners in similar efforts elsewhere.

The Governments both at Centre and the States have rolled out programmes with high allocations of resources to improve access to drinking water and sanitation in the country. However, despite such huge investments, potable and treated drinking water has not reached the people. The Census 2011 shows that even though access to drinking water appears to have improved, still around 17% of the rural population mostly women have to walk more than 500 meters for water.

The problem is even more acute in the case of sanitation. Programmes like Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) earlier known as Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) have not been able to ensure access to basic sanitation in households. The 2011 census has revealed the grim status, where 67.3% of the rural India and 12.6 % of the urban India still defecate in the open every day.

The experiences and the outcomes narrated in this booklet give real life examples where people and their local institutions have led changes and progress. The outcomes are not just as a result of interventions, but more so because of the approaches adopted. Key aspects of experiences are highlighted below.

Women Leadership: In Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, a woman Sarpanch (elected village leader) led the change in her village and ensured that all sections of the village gain access to water and sanitation. In the slums of Bhopal and Indore it was the women who came forward to fight for their rights as citizens, made efforts to motivate others and supervised the quality of construction.

Swaraj (Self Governance) has been improved to Su-Raj (Good Governance): People collectively developed rules for supply and management of water and sanitation and ensured these were adhered to by all. This has been possible through a participatory process of decision-making which was facilitated by the implementing partner organisations. The approach believed in people and their ability to design, implement and manage the water and sanitation facilities. Investments were made in capacity building of people and of their institutions. The concept of self governance or swaraj has thus been improved further into Su-Raj (Good Governance).

Empowerment is a process leading to lasting changes: Empowerment does not happen instantaneously; it is a process and requires time. Investments in people led processes, and building their capacities is the beginning, creation and nurturing of people’s institutions as a collective taking their decisions is the culmination. In all the interventions, people’s empowerment was the ultimate goal. People’s institutions were able to demand services from the government, and progressively improve the service standards and the quality of their lives. For example, the sanitation intervention in one location inspired the people’s institution to approach the government for bio gas plants that have finally resulted in making the kitchens smoke-free.

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People’s voices on WASH

Access to Drinking water leading to overall development: Drinking water interventions have enabled both women and men to save a lot of time as they no more need to walk long distances to fetch water. This extra time has enabled them to take up different vocations and devote more time to caring for children at home. Girl children too have benefitted as they need no more time out of their studies to fetch water for the household. The overall health of the population has seen a marked improvement and had shown a positive impact on life and livelihoods.

Beyond conventional approaches: When working among communities with diverse cultural background, where every context is different and every challenge is unique, it is important to be open to new ideas. Stories in this booklet share experiences on how people found solutions through new ways of working which were more effective and successful than conventional solutions. For example, the drinking water quality issue in a village was resolved through innovative technology. Ecosan was accepted by the community, in a village where due to high ground water level the conventional leach pit Household Latrines could not be constructed.

Solutions come from the people: Often development practitioners design interventions based on predetermined ideas and knowledge, which are not suitable to the diverse contexts. Enabling people to evolve their own solutions and priorities is in itself an empowering process. In one of the experiences, the villagers felt that drinking water was more important than sanitation. They began with drinking water, subsequently were convinced and the issues of sanitation were addressed.

Situational analysis to understand the socio political dynamics: The dynamics within any community can be a threat to the collective processes. Investing in understanding this dimension is important to ensure sustainability of the changes. In one intervention where this was not done led to conflicts and delay in the processes. In another intervention, which started with discussions among the various groups, the process led to the solutions being found and worked upon.

Menu of options helping people to make their choices: When multiple options on cost, technology and design were presented to people they were encouraged to discuss and make their choices. It is important that at the time of planning drinking water and sanitation interventions it is important to present different options to choose from, to explore which of these options will yield results at what cost and facilitate people to take the process to a informed decision.

People are willing to share costs when assured of quality: In all the experiences narrated, the community has been convinced and willing to share costs, and have invested their own resources like time, labour, and cash towards improved water and sanitation facilities. In both urban and rural contexts, people have made their own contributions and have paid for the operations and maintenance of the facilities.

Train the leaders - the key to mobilise people: By investing in building the capacity of the natural and formal leaders has enabled to build trust and has helped in convincing people to participate in collective processes. The trained leaders were committed and inspired to bring about the positive change.

The stories covered in this book provide insights into the approaches that WASH practitioners can consider while designing water and sanitation interventions. The lessons, give a glimpse of the challenges and how these were overcome, which may help to upscale and reach more people efficiently. The experiences have been documented with this intention.

Towards Development

5

Towards Development

A case of woman leader and WASHSunil Kujur and Rajkumar Patel

Experience has shown that it is easier to change the habit of people in case of drinking water by asking them to switch from unsafe to safe sources than to change their sanitation habits. Changing people’s habit of open defecation and getting them to switch to sanitary toilets has been quite challenging for many intervening agencies across the country. However, there are instances where the community has adopted new toilet habits quickly because of the high level of commitment and motivation by community leaders who have attempted to uphold the toilet as a symbol of dignity. This has happened in the Sinha Gram Panchayat in the state of CG, where a woman leader has proved that WASH can be successfully implemented and behaviour change adopted by the community. The entire action has taken place as a result of dedicated efforts of Non Government Organisation (NGO), Lok Shakti Samiti (LSS) , Raigadh.

ContextIt is an established fact that an educated mother educates the whole family. Thus if women works on issue of the development of the community, she becomes a landmark for the community.

Sinha village, a Gram Panchayat in Pussore block of Raigarh District in CG, has 234 households with a population of 1,281. Just a few years ago only 11 well-to-do households in this village had sanitary toilets. All others used to go for open defecation. The women folk had to go far for defecation. There was also an acute drinking water problem as most of the time the hand pumps did not work. Women had to wait for hours in queue to fetch water. It was especially difficult in summers season when the water level went further down. People could simply not fulfil their requirement of water. Sometimes, they had to fetch water from other villages located at a distance of 2-3 Kms. There was also no drainage system in the village and, as a result, there would was water logging in the village road, making it muddy and sludgy and the breeding ground of flies and mosquitoes. Because of water logging and practice of open defecation, the drinking water sources got polluted and contaminated. Although the Gram Panchayat had an important role in providing drinking water and sanitation assistance, their response was poor and people were unaware of their entitlements.

This village witnessed a major change ever since a village woman, Uma Sahu, became the Sarpanch in 2005. She worked in mission mode to ensure that every household get safe drinking water at their doorstep and also had toilet for sanitation, thus enhancing self-respect. Uma Sahu is now a famous name not only in Pussore Block but also in the entire district.

One of six siblings, she was the only child of her parents to study up to the 8th Standard. Hailing from Girgira village of Champa district she got married in Sinha village. She is by nature very sociable and a lady of progressive thoughts. By virtue of her pleasant behaviour and conflict resolution skills, she gradually became popular not only amongst the village women, but also the men who started looking at her as a role model for their women-folk. She literally started a movement in the village on sanitation and potable drinking water. Her popularity culminated in getting her elected as Sarpanch of Sinha Gram Panchayat in the year 2005, when the Sarpanch seat was reserved for women.

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People’s voices on WASH

LSS had been working for people’s empowerment, women’s health, rural drinking water and sanitation in Raigarh district since the year 1996.With support from WaterAid India, LSS organised a workshop in the year 2007 where the team came in contact with Uma Sahu. Looking at appreciate the leadership qualities of Uma, LSS decided to work in close coordination with her as the prime mover of the drinking water and sanitation work in Sinha village.

InterventionTo prove the saying that women power is the real power of society, Umaji along with her Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) members decided to go about systematically and collated baseline data with the help of LSS’s expertise on social mapping, resource mapping and existing community based institutions. Issues like unavailability of sufficient drinking water, lack of toilets in the households, lack of proper garbage disposal habits of people, water logging and mud sludge on the village road came up as major public health problems. LSS adopted a systematic capacity building strategy for Umaji and she participated in a couple of leadership development programmes.

On the basis of the findings of water and sanitation status assessment, the Gram Panchayat under Umaji’s leadership took up the matter of maintenance of the dysfunctional water resources like hand pumps and ensuring availability of drinking water with the Janpad Panchayat and Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) officials. Thanks to sincere follow-up efforts by Umaji, four hand pumps were repaired and a proposal was submitted for installing a power-pumped water supply system. Having received no definite commitment from the Janpad Panchayat for two months, Umaji along with a group of women went to meet the District Collector and submitted a memorandum to this effect. The efforts resulted in installation of two power pumps for drinking water supply and subsequently piped water supply in the year 2010. During the year 2008-09, LSS with support from the district administration worked on issues of water and sanitation in the whole district under the NBA. Under the programme, 11 Gram Panchayats including Sinha were

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targeted for Nirmal Gram Panchayat (NGP). Umaji extended all support in planning and executing the activities required for making the Panchayat ‘Nirmal’. This required a lot of efforts in building capacity of the grass root level workers of LSS as well as enhanced community participation. The involvement of Anganwadi workers, school teachers and elected PRI members as catalysts to the movement was ensured by Umaji.

Through a thorough discussion in the Gram Sabha Umaji strongly advocated for having a sanitary toilet in every household and a proposal to this effect was submitted to Janpad Panchayat. Under the 12th Finance Commission grant, Rs.2,90,400 was sanctioned for 132 Below Poverty Line (BPL) households and Rs.1,72,900 for Above Poverty Line APL households by the Janpad Panchayat. With the help of the LSS team, Umaji continuously followed up on the construction and usage of toilets by the households. The women and youth groups became vigilant against open defecation. This substantially impacted the use of toilets. The news about this intensive initiative to create a Nirmal Gram Panchayat spread to other Gram Panchayats, Janpad Panchayat and the district level as well. The Block/District level officials and elected PRI members from other places started coming on exposure visits to Sinha Gram Panchayat. This was indeed a matter of pride for the village. The initiative further got momentum in convergence with other flagship programmes when the six community ponds were renovated with resources from Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employement Gurantee Scheme (MGNREGS). A massive awareness programme helped in creating the embankment and cleaning of ponds for the use by village people and ground water recharge. Schemes like the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) were also utilised to make the 700 metre village road as RCC road.

Capacity building efforts made by LSS: The LSS helped Uma Sahu to get the needed exposure visit to Sarguja District for NGP in the year 2008-09. She also underwent various training programmes like on women’s political empowerment, Panchayati Raj Act, which strengthened her knowledge and skill level thus enabling her to perform better.

Support from her family: Needless to mention, Umaji’s husband Shri Motichand Sahu had been very supportive throughout her journey. She says, “LSS provided all knowledge and skill support and my husband provided all moral support to serve the community.”

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People’s voices on WASH

Due to her accomplishment, the Dainik Bhaskar Group of CG awarded her with the title of ‘Jal Sainik’ and the State Commission for Women of CG also felicitated her for her good work. Her efforts brought further glory to the village when Sinha Gram Panchayat was awarded with Nirmal Gram Puraskar by the President of India in the year 2011-12.

OutcomesThe work done with the leaders of the village Panchayats had the following outcomes:

Availability of drinking water improved and increased: There was a substantial addition of drinking water sources (Table 1). Once, many of the water sources in the village had been defunct, but now not only are those sources in working condition, there are also additional sources. Today there is piped water supply in the village.

Table 1: Drinking water resources then and now

Sr. No Name of the water resource

Pre-intervention situation (2007)

Present situation (2012)

1 Hand Pump 09 11

2 Tube well 01 04

3 Piped water supply 00 Scheme in place with street stand posts–10, individual connection-38

From a few to all: Before the intervention there were only 11 households which had toilets. Today, with the efforts of the Panchayat, resources and grant have come in to the village and all the households (234) have toilet facilities. The village has been freed of the curse of open defecation.

Aam ke aam gutli ke dam: The Hindi saying has been proved right. The people, figuratively speaking, have enjoyed not just the mangoes, but are also enjoying the seeds. The Sinha Gram Panchayat has undertaken the work of de-silting and renovating six ponds of the village under the MGNREGS programme during the year 2011-12. This work provided employment to villagers and helped in water conservation. Today with the same money they have got double benefits.

Sinha is a better known village today: Sinha village is recognised at the nation’s capital city for the work it has done. This has brought in pride and recognition. In a backward state like CG, where women face many restrictions and are expected to remain homebound, working as an elected representative in a Panchayat is a challenge. It is a common phenomenon in our country that spouses of elected women PRI representatives often behave and work as de-facto PRI members. However, for those women PRI members Umaji stands as a role model. Umaji has dispelled the myth and proved that women can come out of the veil and contribute to the development process. Her commitment to development, her decision making strategy (through collective action) and her fearless nature has brought accolades, even at the national level, for her as well as Sinha village.

Dedication and service to community can overcome all odds: Umaji, the Sarpanch of Sinha Gram Panchayat, has lived a life of struggle and challenges. In the year 2005 her husband was beaten when he tried to prevent someone of the village from chopping the trees by the village road. Being honest, she had to pay the price when she was suspended from the position of Sarpanch through a no-confidence motion on a forged case of misappropriation under MGNREGS programme. She fought with all conviction and was reinstated triumphantly. Not only that, when the Sarpanch seat was unreserved in the year 2009-10 election, she was re-elected (amongst both men and women candidates) with absolute majority.

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Learnings The intervention brought some very specific sets of learnings for those involved in similar efforts elsewhere. Some of these were:

Practice is more powerful than precept: During the drinking water and sanitation intervention many awareness programmes were conducted, but they had little impact. But when a local leader of the community practiced this, people were convinced and thereafter the impact was phenomenal.

Leader has to sacrifice self interest to make an impact: Many a time even experts cannot be successful as they cannot sacrifice their self-interest. The road passing through Sinha village was narrow at many points because of encroachment by many households. When the Sarpanch wanted to widen it, she first realised that her own family had also encroached on the road by extending the roof of the house. She first demonstrated her conviction by removing the encroached portion of her house and then appealed to others to follow. Her gesture made a tremendous impact. All the people whose houses had encroached on the road removed the encroachments on their own. Motivating the leaders to demonstrate such exemplary action may be what development agencies should aim at.

Where there is a will there is always a way: Under the PMGSY the Sinha village is linked with national highway by a 3 Km metalled road. The streets of the village have also been made with 700 metre RCC road. Now the villagers don’t have to face the problem of water and mud logging. This has been possible as the leadership knew exactly what it wanted to do for the village. The will to do something prevailed and changed the very face of the village.

Effective leadership can change the socio-economic landscape of every village: The Gram Panchayats are provided with resources or power to mobilise resources for development, but it is the leadership which matters the most in governance mobilising people and resources. The leadership of Sinha Gram Panchayat is a model for others to emulate. Thus, it is not getting

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People’s voices on WASH

resources that one should work towards; it is generating the leadership that is always the better tool. The leader can get resources and change the landscape.

Investment in leadership pays back: It does not matter if this investment is done on a man or woman, it is important that the investments are done on increasing the potential. Being in a position to represent a community means that there is some potential. The potential now would require investment by the third party. NGOs and GOs must recognise this and take appropriate steps to make the leadership understand their role and contribute accordingly. The case proves this point.

ConclusionWhen it is universally argued that to bring in behavioural change amongst people is the most challenging work, this particular case shows what all can be done provided the leadership has conviction and dedication. Water and sanitation is such a development issue for the majority of our population, where people really need a cultural revolution. For engineering such revolution more and more leaders like Uma Sahu should participate in local governance. There is no dearth of leadership qualities amongst people. What is important is to identify them and entrust the responsibilities ignoring selfish interests. Though the experience during last two decades of devolution of power to local self governance has not been extremely encouraging, these exceptions keep hopes alive.

Empowered Community Works Wonders

13

Empowered Community Works Wonders

A community-led initiative to make ‘freedom from open defecation’ the mantraSujata Tirkey and Jitendra Parmar

In 2008, AARAMBH initiated an intervention in 14 slums of Bhopal city. The support for this intervention came under the project, SWADHAR, which emphasised on advocacy and networking. This work was initiated to demonstrate to the government the efficacy of a participatory approach in the development of urban slums. AARAMBH, as this case depicts, could demonstrate how communities can be empowered to acquire sanitation facilities and how as a consequence of such efforts the slum dwellers are able to enjoy improved health conditions. The case put before us the efforts initiated by the organisation to engage the community and how the same helped in ensuring an open defecation free slum.

ContextBhopal, the 2nd largest urban location in MP, is better known as the city of lakes. However, since the last decade the city has been losing its grace under the growing pressure of population. As per the 2001 census, the population of Bhopal was 14.35 lakh and this stands today (2011) at 17.96 Lakhs showing a growth of 25%. The city administration have divided the city into 14 zones and 66 wards. There are over 380 notified slums and they all vary in terms of size as well as problems. In 2005, during a Poverty Pocket Situational Analysis (PPSA) of these 380 slums done by AARAMBH in collaboration with the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) and WaterAid, it was seen that the slums were in very poor condition with regards to drinking water and sanitation. One of the slums, Arjun Nagar, was ranked the lowest as it had insufficient drinking water supply and very poor outreach of sanitation facilities. In the absence of all this, its residents had to resort to open defecation.

Lack of access to improved water sources and sanitation was the major problem faced by the slum dwellers of Arjun Nagar in Ward 63. Most of the households hailed from deprived and marginalized communities who had migrated to Bhopal from the villages of Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Orissa. They had migrated in search of better livelihood opportunities. The slum dwellers of Arjun Nagar were engaged in various kinds of occupations,which included daily wage labour, domestic work and small time businesses. Out of the 400 households in Arjun Nagar, only 180 had some access to sanitation facilities. In spite of there being IHHL, these toilets were not connected to septic tanks and were single pit ones. In most cases, the liquid component would spill out into the open drains.The existing IHHLs were technologically unsound and thus caused damage to the environment. Those who did not have toilets could not get them constructed due to financial constraints. Many of them also did not have the space for toilet. Some of them were also ignorant and due to poverty they had no option but to defecate in the open. The community was unaware of the available resources, technology and information on sanitation, which led to poor toilet coverage.

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People’s voices on WASH

This practice of open defection had serious consequence on the environment. Due to the practise of open defecation the morbidity among the residents was high. Incidence of diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid and skin diseases was high. It also led to wastage of time, especially for the women and girls who had to go to far away places to defecate. The PPSA also revealed that women and girls were abused and teased and also sometimes physically harassed while defecating in open. They would wait the whole day till dark to go out and defecate.

AARAMBH had been involved in working with children for the last 17 years. The main focus of its work had been to ensure rights and education for children. While working with the children, the organisation realised that sanitation was a major issue and absence of sanitation led to absenteeism among children. This hampered education significantly. Improved sanitation was seen as the solution and so when the city launched its Slum Environmental Sanitation Initiative (SESI) in 2005-07, AARAMBH was quick to get into action. It approached the issue using the tool of community participation by involving the children and women in order to provide safe drinking water and sanitation facilities in urban slums.

InterventionHuman beings are known to be the most dynamic ones among all living beings. But still to change the mindset of human beings is an extremely difficult proposition. Acting on the findings of the base line survey, AARAMBH focussed its attention on the problem of open defecation. AARAMBH adopted the methodology of Focus Group Discussion (FGD); house visits and transact walks to learn more about the conditions of the existing toilets and also to understand how the community perceived open defecation. The analysis of the data revealed that in the past not much work had taken place in the slums in relation to sanitation.

The collected data was also shared with the lady corporator. This was done to seek her support in terms of fund, since there was no such provision available with the municipality, In the meantime, with support of WaterAid, it was decided that 85 IHHLs would be constructed in two phases. AARAMBH together with community members evolved a criterion of selection of

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As there were no existing community groups in the slum, AARAMBH team had problems in identifying the key members for the formation of the WASH committee. Through regular interactions and meetings,the community itself decided and selected the active members. 12 members, including women and men, were selected, with representatives from each lane of the slum. The WASH committee reflected on the data, analyzed the problems and evolved ways to work on them. Capacity building training on hygiene and sanitation was organized by AARAMBH to promote safe hygiene practices.

Out of 400 households, 220 households in Arjun Nagar did not have sanitation facilities. The WaterAid project was to help only 85 households to construct a single leach pit toilet. The amount provided under this project would help in the construction up to the ground level and the user had to construct the superstructure on their own. The selected households were also expected to carry out the digging of the pit and provide labour work to the mason. It was also decided that the

households. The criteria included families who were financially weak, families having growing daughters and those having senior citizens. It was decided that such families would be given the sanitation facilities on priority basis. However, these households were expected to provide for certain support by way of doing free labour and also digging the pit in their own premises.

AARAMBH adopted the strategy to initiate the formation of a WASH committee and planned to form a group of 12 members who would be made responsible to work with the community and empower the community on improved sanitation practices. Investments were also made to build the capacities of the communities towards health, hygiene and sanitation.

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People’s voices on WASH

material would be distributed on the condition that the family had completed pit digging.The cost per household was estimated at Rs.1,500 up to the ground level and without the superstructure. The mason was also selected by the WASH members from the slum itself.

The households found it difficult to spare time for digging pits. With the earning hands in the family involved in pit digging, they would not be able to earn for the day. Most of the families thus were not willing to start pit digging work. It was only when one from among them, the WASH committee president Mrs. Kusum Pal, took the initiative to dig the pit on her own, that others followed suit.

Dedicated efforts were also made by AARAMBH team members to dispel the reservations in the minds of the community. Many of them avoided the digging as they thought having a toilet within the house would mean bad odour within the house. Observing the problems, AARAMBH team facilitated and educated the households about the technology of low cost toilets. Some were convinced, whereas others adopted a wait and watch approach.

WASH members also kept watch on all the activities including the material distribution and quality of construction. The material was brought to the roadside and distributed among the families in the presence of the WASH members. Each family was provided with 300 bricks, 15 bags of sand, 2 bags cement, and 1 toilet seat (pan) with 1 P –Trap. According to the requirement the materials were distributed and the records of these distributions were kept by the WASH members. In the construction process of a single pit, a pit measuring 4 * 4 feet was dug up and a circular brick wall constructed with gaps in between in the form of a honeycomb so that the water get soaked. It took about 2-3 days to construct up to the base level for each households. The WASH committee oversaw the quality of construction and provided some directions as well. During the execution of the work the ward councillor was also involved in the process. Within the next four months all the 85 IHHLs were constructed.

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During the construction and after the completion of construction of all the toilets, awareness programmes about the use, importance and maintenance were conducted at frequent intervals. Proper ways of using individual toilets were demonstrated and the households were told to take the responsibility of maintenance and cleanliness of their individual toilets. The entire process brought ownership among the community.

AARAMBH team regularly visited and facilitated the process within the community and motivated them to build their individual toilets. Observing the need and importance of sanitation, the remaining 135 households also adopted the concept of low cost toilets and started constructing the same using their own resources. Since they had seen that the support from outside was meagre, they did it on their own. Although in the beginning some of them did seek some support, when the same did not come through, they went ahead on their own. By, 2010 all 400 households had constructed the toilets.

Outcomes The effort by the team to work in the slum of Arjun Nagar has proved to be highly beneficial for the dwellers. Some of the broad benefits that the interventions brought forth are:

Sanitation has become one of the significant indicator prominently reflecting social status: Having a toilet is now a status symbol. This has become an important consideration today. This was never a need when AARAMBH started its intervention. People had doubts about the efficacy of the same and many had problems of having the same within the four walls of the house. But as these doubts got dispelled, people started constructing the same. Families today are looked down upon if they do not have a toilet.

Sanitation has improved the quality of life in Arjun Nagar: Arjun Nagar has become a model urban slum, showing that total sanitation using proper technology and low cost is possible. The efforts have proved that success is within possible reach. Scaling up the skills of WASH members has established this successful picture and made Arjun Nagar an open defecation free slum. The benefits of sanitation and its resultant, i.e. hygienic behavior, have accrued to the community at large. There is today a reduction in incidence of diseases like diarrhea, typhoid, malaria etc. The doctors who have clinics in the area and who once made fortunes out of people’s illness are contemplating shifting base.

Arjun Nagar is duly recognized for its efforts: The dedicated efforts and proper counseling by the WASH committee members have made not just 85 households grab the benefit from AARAMBH, but also made the remaining 135 households construct their own toilets, using their own resources. The BMC took cognizance of this hard work and also appreciated the efforts and awarded Arjun Nagar slum for the first open defecation free slum in the Antodaya Mela held in 2011.

Women now feel secure: Besides the dignity of women, safety too has been achieved. The women were earlier harassed and teased and sometimes physically assaulted when they went out for open defecation. Today they feel safe and secured as they do not have to venture out for open defecation. Their health have improved as they can relieve themselves any time now and need not have to wait for the sun to set. This has also helped them to save time.

LearningsWorking with the slum dwellers of Arjun Nagar had been an experience to treasure. The work included methods applied to form a facilitating institution, making the institution responsible for carrying out the task and thereafter getting the entire community to have their own toilets without a penny of support. This has yielded valuable learnings for those involved. Some of these were:

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People’s voices on WASH

Involve the community for decision making to make the programme successful: The community participation has proved that unity is a catalyst. This can help remove any problem. Involving the WASH members helped in creating a vision among the community members and this made the place an open defecation free area. This has been possible as from the very onset AARAMBH involved the community in all processes. They were involved in understanding the problem, developing methods to deal with the problem, motivating the users to use the toilets and then to make the rest construct their own toilets.

People are always ready to double up if provided: “If you help us take the first step, we are willing to take two”, is what Mrs. Kusum Pal once said when she was first approached by AARAMBH. Sanitation is an issue that starts from the individual and spreads to the community. It is the interpersonal communication that facilitates and makes way for desired behavioural changes. The people are ready to put in their share in the process if someone comes with some support.

Water and sanitation without dialogue with women will never move: Sanitation definitely provides privacy and safety to women and adolescent girls and it is they who gain the most from this intervention. Once the toilets were constructed in a few houses it is the women who took initiatives within their own families to convince others. They convinced and motivated the rest of the community members and tried to bring attitudinal change by participating in this programme. Such interventions thus get the support it requires if agencies involved in such intervention take it with women.

Reflecting together always makes things sustainable: This is in reference to the Health Card. AARAMBH collected the data in consultation with the community members and added some other dimensions as inputs given by the community. Through various interactions and meetings, community recognized and conveyed that decrease in incidences of diseases has been observed due to the availability of sanitation facilities in their premises. The reflection process which the agency carried out with the community time and again aided in making the programme a success.

ConclusionArjun Nagar has surely moved ahead in ensuring better water and sanitation services by adhering to the principle of community participation. The participation of women has been commendable; in fact,the real catalysts have been the women who extended full support in this drive under the persuasive leadership of the WASH members. Engagement of WASH and community members also created the vision among the slum dwellers to make their slum clean. Arjun Nagar has now become known in Bhopal among the municipal corporation staff, despite the fact that it never got support from anyone except the community itself.

Women Drive Civic Administration to Deliver

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Women Drive Civic Administration to Deliver

Case of Slum Improvement in Urban IndoreReeta Lahiri and Charusheela Morya

Any country, region or town can be said to be developed if its citizens do not face difficulties in accessing basic civic amenities. It is often the lack of services like drinking water and sanitation that has a bearing and negative impact on their health. Family members suffering from one disease or the other, result in weakening of the economic condition of any household.

With increasing urbanisation in India, the migration of the rural population to urban centres has seen a rising trend over the last one decade. The rate of growth has resulted in the crumbling of the basic services under pressure.

In 2005, Bharatiya Gramin Mahila Sangh (BGMS) piloted some programmes for strengthening the slum level organisations and helped in building the capacity of the service providers to increase their efficiency. The approach was to work with 30 communities out of the 61 wards and bring them into the mainstream of development. BGMS selected 10 wards and started working in five of them at the community level. The case depicts the intervention of the organisation in one such ward and brings forth how sanitation and drinking water, which constitute the basic amenities, are obtained by the dwellers in such slums. The crux of the approach lay in organising the slum dwellers. BGMS chose to work along with the community as part of the people’s entitlement as citizens of municipalities and corporations.

ContextAs one of the major business centres of MP, Indore has seen large scale migration of population from nearby villages and towns and from other places across the country. There is another spurt in population growth during the last decade and the city’s population grew by almost 25 % between 2001 and 2011. Thus, in 2011 the city had a population of about 2 million.

With the drastic increase in population, the basic services provided by the city council (the Indore Municipal Corporation), for example drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, were thrown out of gear. Alongside, as in other places, the apathy of the current machineries in working out methods to reach out to the unreached also co-existed. In such a situation, BGMS, which had been working on similar issues with women in rural areas of the district for almost about 45 years, came forward to work with the urban slums. It realised that its core strength lay in organising the people, particularly women, and facilitate them to achieve their entitlements. It upheld the maxim that if women are empowered then the family is empowered.

In the year 2003, the organisation initiated its work with the women of the marginalised community from 15 zones of the 61 wards. It initiated the formation of slum level organisations in 15 slums of Indore. The members of these slum level organisations were given training on various issues of hygiene. Their capacity was built to link them with the service providers of the health department. These women, who received training from the organisation, were soon identified by the slum dwellers as health workers in the slums. They carried out identification of

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People’s voices on WASH

InterventionBGMS carried out a PPSA in 2005 covering all 604 slums in Indore, focusing on the water and sanitation status in these slums in terms of access and availability. This survey was supported by WaterAid and the UN Habitat. The survey revealed that 40% of the total 20 lakh population of the city (i.e. 8,00,000) lived in the slums. Out of the these 8,00,000,about 2,40,000 persons did not have access to safe drinking water and another 1,75,000 persons had no access to sanitation facilities and were forced to go for open defecation. Widespread open defecation had a negative impact on the environment.

The findings provided enough cause of concern and thereafter a plan was formulated by BGMS which received support from WaterAid. The plan identified the slums where the problem was acute and needed immediate action. 15 such slums were selected and the organisation started its process of mobilising the community. BGMS staff made regular visits to the community and during these visits discussed the importance of having safe drinking water. The visits helped in the formation and registration of 15 slum level committees. It was a tripartite programme supported by WaterAid, Un-Habitat and the Municipal Corporation. The effort made 11 such slums free from open defecation and another six slums were provided with safe drinking water service. The slum people and their organisations played an active role in all processes of developing the slum including planning, implementation and monitoring.

The successful effort in 15 slums acted as an energiser for the organisation. It helped the organisation get further support from WaterAid and UN Habitat to work in another 16 slums in

pregnant women and helped them to have safe institutional delivery. They also took up the responsibility of vaccination of children in the age group of 0 -1. As a result of this, Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) saw some reduction in this area. The active participation of slum level organisations helped in increasing the confidence of the workers and also of the slum dwellers in the organisation. This process was undertaken prior to the work on drinking water and sanitation. The process helped in establishing rapport between the organisation and the community.

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2008. The work in these slums also followed similar strategies. The work done in these 16 slums included 100 units of demo toilets, 5 compost pits, 10 biogas plants and 10 roof rain water harvesting structures. A total outlay of Rs.2,20,000 was expended in all these efforts. The demo units were low cost and successful. Inspired by these 100 toilets, another 164 families were motivated into constructing their own toilets at their homes. All these efforts helped in making the 16 slums free from open defecation. The slum level people’s organisations also played a significant role in making all this happen. The organisation provided timely inputs on issues like leadership, right to information, water and hygiene.

After two successful rounds of work in an urban setting, the third phase was planned at the initiation of the government where the latter agreed to provide hardware support for improving water and sanitation services, while BGMS would support community level processes and capacity development. PPSA was carried out in 10 wards of Indore. On the basis of the survey, water and sanitation work in 31 slums of 5 wards of Indore was to be addressed. The plan was aimed at providing drinking water to 40,000 households and to ensure availability of toilets for 5,000 people. This phase was probably the largest one and hence put forth a big challenge. The challenge was made greater by the fact that this phase did not have financial support for sanitation from the organization. Therefore, the success of this phase would depend on the success of the organisation in empowering the community and helping them claim these from the service providers as part of their entitlements. Work in 31 slums started with the process of mobilising the slum level organisations. The organisation mandated that at least 10% women must have representation in these committees. They organised frequent meetings with the community and discussed methods to work together. This was a time taking process. It took about eight months to get the 31 slum level organisations to start functioning. During this period the organization also made efforts to build the capacity of the community. A training programme, with support of the existing members of the slum level committee, was done to speed up the process. The work done during this phase in one such slum deserves special mention.

Slum number 57, also known as Raja Rani Slum, was established some 16 years ago. This slum was set up on 300 plots and about 130 families today reside in this slum. Since the last 10 years this slum had been getting its drinking water from one bore well that was made available to them after prolonged struggle. The then Member of Parliament had helped the community get this bore well installed. The slum did not have the facility of an approach road, internal roads, waste disposal and drainage system. The male members of the slum had in the past made several efforts to bring in these services but they were not successful. In April 2012, the organisation helped form a women’s committee with the participation of the slum people. This slum committee elected one member, Smt. Suman Bidare, as a president. She was educated and had leadership qualities. This slum level organisation helped in identifying their issues and also prioritised them. The process revealed that the unhygienic condition of the slum was the major issue for them to work on. The reasons identified were lack of sewerage line, lack of availability of hygiene workers and lack of proper waste disposal system.

The members of the slum level organisation, under the guidance of the organisation’s team, worked on giving a written memorandum to the Zonal level Officer and also the MLA from the area. The memorandum was for the construction of a sewerage line, also called the gutter connection. The president of the committee submitted this memorandum to the Zonal Officer and the MLA. But the Zonal Officer brought out papers to communicate that since this slum was non-notified; the administration had no responsibility towards investing its resources for providing civic amenities.

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People’s voices on WASH

This news came as a shock for the slum dwellers. However they had obtained the 130 plots from the colonisers in the past. The zonal officer and the coloisers attended the meeting and it was here the committee asked the coloniser to initiate the process of notifying the slum. Since many plots still remained unoccupied and the coloniser had mentioned that they had already been sold and he did not have any responsibility now, the committee stated that either they should be given the contact details or they would occupy those plots. The coloniser was taken aback by the method of argument and agreed to chip in with his support to provide for constructing the sewerage lines. By then the dwellers had also agreed to put in their share. The news about the slum committee making its efforts to have its own gutter line reached the ruling party in the elected municipal council and they promised that they would do the needful. The slum dwellers were told that they need not go to the sitting representative who belonged to the other party. As on date, work has started for the laying down of a new gutter line.

During these interactions, the committee members had also been discussing several issues, which in one or the other way, were related to health. It was found that many people in the slums had complaints of stomach ache and mouth infections. The problem had to be dealt with. They were drinking the water from the bore well which was possible not of the desired quality. The water sample was taken and given for quality assessment. The test results were shocking. The water had e-coli, a form of bacteria, at a level of 100 mpn per 100 ml of water, when the desired level is 0 per 100 ml. The water was thus absolutely unfit for drinking. However, in the absence of any other source of water, the solution had to be found in treating the water and making it potable. The committee members were asked to get chlorine tablets from the health department. Since the health department of the Municipal Corporation had no provisions with them, the tablets were purchased from the market and distributed among the slum dwellers. Training was organised on how to use these chlorine tablets and after the training each of the women members was handed 60 such tablets for use for the next 2 months. Some used them and some found the water to taste different and hence discontinued. Those who continued could see the results forthcoming. One member’s daughter showed immediate improvement in her conditions of stomach ache. Today all the 130 households are using the chlorine tablets and the committee has made provisions for additional tablets.

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The story of Raja Rani Slum is not an isolated one. Efforts have yielded good results in slums like Indrajit Nagar, Amar Palace, Tejpur, Chapri and Ward 41 of Aman Nagar. The costs also have been reasonable (Table 1). The committees of these slums have started performing their roles. These committees will soon be registering themselves as area development committees under the Section 74 CAA of the Indian Constitution. They will work as associate organisations of the municipal corporation in days to come and get support by way of grants and services for the upkeep and maintenance of civic facilities in their respective slums. The process has just begun but has shown promise of a better future for the residents of the slums of Indore.

Table 1: Expenses incurred in Raja Rani Slum

Activity Particular Per day/person Total (in Rs.)

Formation of committee 12 visits of organisation team members in 3 months

350 4,200

Capacity building WASH, Leadership and RTI training for 4 committee members for 3 days ( total 12 units)

300 3,600

Other Chlorine 100

Visit of committee members to different departments

5 days 100 500

Compensation of committee member’s work days

17 days of 3 women 100 5,100

Total expenses 13,500

Outcome Raja Rani Slum has undergone a miraculous transformation, which has yielded several outcomes. Some of them are:

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People’s voices on WASH

Slum dwellers are today mobilised and organised: The situation has changed for the better. A few months ago blaming each other for problems and picking up fights were regular phenomena among the slum dwellers. Today the slum dwellers support each other and together keep the environment hygienic. The clean and hygienic condition of the slum can be attributed to this mobilisation effort.

Women prefer not to remain at home when it comes to collective action: “We will not remain inside the house” is what women say now. The women of Raja Rani Slum, for whom the four walls had been the world, have started coming out. They are the leaders of the slum development committee. They organised their own meetings, approach different departments for their entiltlements and prepare written memoranda for submission. The situation was never like this before. This change can be attributed to the continuous training and hand holding support provided by the organisation.

The health expenditure is declining and income levels rising: Earlier, the slum dwellers had serious health related issues and had to incur heavy expenses on treatment. The use of chlorinated water has resulted in improving their health conditions. The health related expenses of the families have thus seen some reduction. Good health also means increased efficiency at work and hence increased income. They no longer need to take leave from work on health grounds. The families who use chlorinated water have placed a request to the committee for more tablets. The organisation has put in its efforts to make these chlorine tablets available from the health department of the municipal corporation. A pack of 2000 tablets are kept with one of the committee members for distribution. A few families have kept with them ready stocks and use them regularly to chlorinate their drinking water.

The slum committee today has its independent identity: Earlier the slum dwellers were unaware about whom to approach for resolving their civic issues. Today the slum committee has its independent identity and everyone residing in the slum is aware about it. The committee is approached whenever some civic issue crops up. The committee has enough knowledge regarding what they need to do and hence has been accepted as the agency for resolving issues. It is self-reliant now.

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Raja Rani Slum has a changed face: The dwellers of this slum used to throw garbage in the open areas. They do not engage in such behaviour anymore. The women members have understood the importance of hygiene and health and have, through their efforts, obtained a garbage dustbin from the municipal corporation. Moreover, thanks to their continuous follow up with the corporation, their drainage systems are cleaned regularly. All these have given the slum a new and improved look.

LearningsThe process of working with urban slums has been an experience in itself. As the team got involved with the men and women to facilitate the process of improving the dwellers’ access to civic amenities, the team realised that some of its strategies worked, whereas others did not. These learnings are important as they form the basis of the organisation’s work in other locations as well. Some of these learnings were:

One must first improve one’s own understanding before initiating work with the community: The organisation learned that if one wants to mobilise the community, then their requirement and priorities must be considered. Similarly, for doing advocacy on behalf of the community the team involved must have understanding of the various aspects. Understanding of different schemes and information on how they are governed also adds to the strength. To work in an urban area one must also have understanding of various statutory requirements. These are legal, non-legal, notary, lease and rules to work in the land acquisition areas of the municipal corporation. Without such understanding, one may make mistakes and that could be costly.

Lack of information adversely affects people’s life: Working with the community taught that people adopt bad habits only when they do not have the right information. If they are given evidence based information of how these habits harm them, they choose to change them without much persuasion. The dwellers of Raja Rani Slum, for instance, had no idea as to why they were having stomach ache and infections in their mouth. But as soon as they realised that it was the polluted water that was causing them these problems, they started using chlorine tablets.

When women get into action things start moving: When women understood that the lack of basic amenities affected their lives they started demanding such services. The administration on which rested the responsibility of providing such services soon got into action. Till then the representation from the men had not yielded such good response. Thus it is necessary to involve women and make them the torch bearers of change.

Involve as many stakeholders as possible to remove conflicts at a later stage: If more stakeholders are involved in the process of deciding upon certain aspects, the probability of conflicts reduces. If the powerful people like coloniser, Member of Legislative Assembly and Member of Parliament are invited to the discussion table with the community facing the problems, the conflicts get addressed through immediate action. The agency learned that involving multiple stakeholders’ helps in providing solutions faster. Transparent processes of open discussions pave the way for actions.

ConclusionThe last seven years of work carried out by BGMS has proved time and again that no single agency can bring in change. The power lies with the people and unless they are organised and unless they take up the issues as their issues change will never be sustainable. Thus, mobilising the community and making them see the effect of the current situation, providing them with options and standing by them during the entire process is the action expected of the development organisation. All these are important roles that one needs to play to ensure that change takes place.

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An Alternative Technology on Sanitation

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An Alternative Technology on Sanitation

Ecosan in action Taukeer Ahmed

It is certainly a fact that large sections of our rural population still go for open defecation. It is difficult to give one single reason why people go for open defecation, is it by choice or due to certain limitations?. Whatever be the case, the truth is that even today many people go for open defecation despite having toilet facility at home. Needless to say, for those who don’t have toilet facility at home, there is no option but to go for open defecation.

Several studies have revealed interesting facts about the use of toilet in rural areas. It has been observed that either the toilets are not properly built are not suitable for use or there is no water source nearby. Water scarcity continues to be a major factor discouraging people from using the toilet in most places. Then there are issues like space, light and ventilation inside the toilet which also matter. Here one such intervention has been described where many of these aspects have been worked upon. This sanitary intervention was done in a place by Centre for Action Research and Management for Developing Attitude Knowledge Skill in Human Resource (CARMDAKSH), where the water table is high, thus making the soak pits rather ineffective.

ContextTime is changing and with increasing awareness on water and sanitation, people in rural areas do not hesitate to make investments within their capacity. There are a few places where people want to have sanitary toilets but because of the high ground water table the soak pits get filled with water, thus making the toilets unusable. Dondhipara hamlet of Batra gram panchayat located in Pali Janpad of Korba district in Chattisgarh had an unusual kind of problem. Around 150 households could not construct the usual kind of toilets as the village had high ground water table which prevented the absorption of water from the soak pits. Dondhipara hamlet is located in a drainage line between two hills. The ground water level is at a depth of 3 to 5 ft. There are natural springs in the hamlet, the water of which the community uses for drinking, and because of these natural springs the hamlet has got its name Dondhipara (Dondhi is the local term for natural springs).

The NGO CARMDAKSH has been in operation since 2003. It works in close collaboration with community based organisations (CBOs). Besides engaging in capacity building of CBOs and livelihood promotion activities, it also works on water and sanitation issues as a matter of priority, focusing on women and children. Through its experiences CARMDAKSH came to understand that water and sanitation have an important bearing on the health and livelihoods of people in rural areas. With support from WaterAid India, it started its intervention in Pali Janpad of Korba district.

The population of the hamlet of Dondhipara is predominantly tribal. People used to fetch drinking water from the shallow well and practised open defecation. Due to water contamination and

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People’s voices on WASH

unhygienic practices, a major portion of their income was spent on health care. They were aware of this, but having a toilet was not possible as the water table was high. They needed a different type of toilet – the Ecosan.

InterventionCARMDAKSH started its intervention in the region by creating awareness on water and sanitation through women self-help groups (SHGs). Due to this of awareness some women were convinced and their families agreed to construct toilets. To begin with, two soak pit toilets were constructed, which generated enthusiasm amongst other families. But the enthusiasm was short-lived as with the onset of the rainy season the leach pits of two toilets overflowed with seepage water from the ground and made the toilets unusable. This created a negative impression about sanitary toilets and people began to think that their traditional practice of open defecation was the better option. This was really a challenging situation for CARMDAKSH.

An alternative to the ordinary sanitary toilet was explored with the help of WaterAid and experts suggested the Ecosan toilet, a technology which is normally suitable in water scarce areas. In the Ecosan toilet, flushing with water is not required after use and it requires altogether a different behaviour practice by the user. When the idea was sold to the community it was rejected outright. People were not convinced that the foul smell of toilets could be controlled without use of water!

Mobilising the Community for Ecosan toilet: Again, the women SHGs were roped in to create awareness about the benefits of Ecosan toilets. After persistent efforts the CARMDAKSH team could convince a woman named Mrs. Jaykunvar, the president of a self-help group, to construct Ecosan toilet. Following Mrs. Jaykunvar, three other women also agreed to this new model but with many ifs and buts.

Since the SHGs were promoted by CARMDAKSH, the women had confidence in the organization and therefore introducing Ecosan was relatively easier.

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Ecosan Toilet

The Ecosan toilet is different from the conventional toilet in its features and usage. It has two chambers, which are built above the ground. Toilet room is constructed above this with two specially designed toilet pans placed over the twin chambers. When one chamber is in use the other one is kept closed. The toilet has three disposal openings- one for the excreta, one for the urine and one for anal cleaning and washing. Ash generated from cooking at home or earth(soil) is used to cover the excreta after every use so as to prevent the emanation of foul smell as well as dry the excreta. Once a pit is full, it is closed for a period of six months and the other pit is opened for use. After six months the excreta in the first chamber is converted into manure without any sort of foul smell. The manure is taken away by breaking the backside chamber wall cover and again the wall is put in place. The compost can be used as bio fertilizer to increase productivity. The two chambers are used alternatively.

Building of Ecosan toilet: There were six members in the family of Mrs. Jaykunvar her husband, their two sons and two daughters. She convinced her family to construct this toilet in the backyard of her house with material support from CARMDAKSH and labour contribution from her family. Meanwhile, preliminary capacity building of CARMDAKSH staff for construction of this new model was undertaken. In the beginning, CARMDAKSH did not had enough knowledge about the design of the structure to be promoted in Ecosan. The first Ecosan toilet was built with brick and cement and the provision of disposing urine was not done very systematically. With continuous support and guidance received from WaterAid there has been significant improvement in the design. There also has been some local innovation of using broken earth pots and plastic cans to dispose the urine.

Use of Ecosan toilet: In the first six months of building these new toilets, regular follow-up was carried out with the community. It was found that they had not fitted the toilet with a door and so no one from the family was using it. They were apprehending foul smell. After several rounds of discussion with the SHGs the CARMDAKSH team could convince Mrs. Jaykunvar’s daughter, a

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People’s voices on WASH

Initially the family members of Mrs. Jaykunvar would take bath after using the toilet to purify themselves after what was to them a very impure practice. Now, the family has got over this mental block. Mrs. Jaykunvar shared her experience in the SHG meeting with other women members. Today, there are 19 Ecosan toilets in Dondhipara and all the family members have started using the toilet. Now other families in the community are also coming forth and are ready to contribute their share to build the toilets.

In the year 2009, the first toilet was built at the house of Mrs. Jaykunvar. The total cost of building the toilet came to Rs.11,000, out of which approximately Rs.1,100 was contributed by the family in the form of labour contribution. The biggest challenge for this model is the high material cost. At present the cost is around Rs.15,000, which is about two times more than the cost of a regular leach pit toilet in the village. During the last two years support for construction of this model was given on priority basis to those families having more women, elderly and children members. In these families women contribute by providing labour. Now families are being encouraged to contribute towards the construction of roof and door of the toilet besides labour component. This will reduce the cost for such intervention to some extent.

physically challenged girl for whom open defecation was difficult, to use the toilet. Both Mrs. Jaykunvar and her daughter were convinced. Thus, experimenting with the use of this model was initiated. Once the daughter started using it, the mother, and thereafter the entire family, followed suit. The news soon spread to others about the convenience of using Ecosan toilet. Others in the village who had built the toilets, but were not using them soon became curious and started visiting the family and seeking their views. Once they came to know that the toilets were trouble-free, they also started using the facility.

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There had been some problems when people used both the chambers instead of one at a time continuously for six months. This delayed the making of the compost and also delayed the process of emptying them. In order to overcome such hitches, behaviour change among the users is necessary, something on which CARMDAKSH staff members are working tirelessly.

Usage of Ecosan compost: It has been more than three years since Ecosan toilets were constructed in Dondhipara village. As of March 2012, in one toilet only one of the pits has been emptied to remove the compost. There was much curiosity to see what kind of manure it would produce. After seeing for themselves that this compost manure had no odour, people were convinced about the multiple benefits of the toilet. The result of using such manure in agriculture has not yet been assessed as they had just started using the same during the Kharif season of 2012.

Outcome The work on this new model had been in itself a struggle for the organisation. They could convince the people to build the toilets, but realised that it takes more to get them to start using the facility. The entire process took time, but since the residents of Dondhipara have started using the toilets there have been some very specific outcomes. Some of them are:

An alternative model is now in place: Ecosan has come out as an alternative to the unfeasible normal toilets for the people of Dondhipara. Now people have started demanding that Ecosan toilets be built at their homes too and they are also ready to contribute towards it. But today the real challenge is the high cost. The government in its NBA programme provides for supporting this kind of toilets. But they lack technical masons to demonstrate and promote the concept. It is not possible for any NGO or donor agency to support this on a mass scale.

The routine of women and children has changed with the use of these toilets: Previously women had to wait till dark to go for defecation. The children and elderly people also had to face difficulties in going out for defecation. All this has come to an end now.

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People’s voices on WASH

Organic manure is one new option: Separated urine is rich in nitrogen and can bring down the cost of chemical fertilizer. The manure that came out from the Ecosan toilets is rich in micronutrients, which can improve yield of agriculture and this can reduce the financial burden of the family and rejuvenate the soil for better productivity. The manure is now under some experimentation in a farm by one farmer.

LearningsThe processes undertaken to make the families first accept a different model and thereafter get them to start using the same have given the practitioners some definitive sets of learning. Some of them were:

One size does not feet all: The soak pit toilet, which is understood as a sustainable option for rural areas in general, had been proved useless in this village. The failure of twin leach pit toilets thus encouraged new efforts to initiate a new model. To establish this was a struggle in itself.

Live examples are the best and can instil confidence: After the failure of leach pit toilets in the village, when the option of Ecosan toilets was put before the community, they were not convinced. But when one such toilet was built and used and the impact was seen, they got convinced easily.

One should be ready for challenges in changing age old practices: Initially the idea of constructing Ecosan toilet was rejected outright. However, when one family accepted the proposition and started using the same, it had a good demonstrative effect. Thus, identifying a progressive individual or family who can be used as a role model or change agent for others becomes a good strategy. This is particularly so when something new is being established.

Rural community is always ready to contribute for its own development provided it understands the benefit: It is always believed that people expect that everything should come free of cost. Bringing in change in that attitude has always been a challenging task. However, when people themselves realise the benefit of certain programmes, they do not hesitate to pay or partially contribute towards it. With families now seeing that this new model also works, they are ready to invest in constructing this toilet.

ConclusionChanging certain sets of habits in the community is really a challenging work for development workers. However, with the right kind of strategy, like entrusting the responsibility of behaviour change to the community-based organisations like women SHGs, this becomes easier. Further, there cannot always be a uniform solution to similar issues. Every solution has to be contextualised and must also get the acceptance of the community. The intervention has proved that being slow and steady but remaining focused to the core brings in success.

Insuring Against Fluoride

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Insuring Against Fluoride

Case on community led & managed fluorosis reduction interventionOmprakash Patidar and Amit Sen

Fluoride in groundwater poses high risk to health. This intervention in Dhar district of MP has helped communities in villages draw up plans to ensure that the water they drink is free from excess fluoride. In the intervention that is described below the organisation has worked along with the community using various means to educate, motivate, find options and install and operate a safe drinking water scheme. The Panchayat, the people, external agencies and the PHED contributed to the scheme. The water supply scheme thus initiated by the agency is now being replicated by the government in many other villages in the district. The government has taken the support of the agency to build community management systems in other villages where similar water supply schemes are being implemented.

ContextDhar district in MP is affected by fluoride contamination in ground water. Some 30 years ago, the area had rich forests and clear streams would flow through the villages of Dharampuri, Nalcha, Umarban and Tirla blocks. These forests are now gone. Much of the land was encroached upon. This was later regularised by providing tenure rights to the inhabitants. Electrification led the people to use the land for intensive irrigation and the only source for water was the underground aquifers. Initially, the aquifers were shallow but the demand has made people tap deeper aquifers.

Fluoride in the area has geogenic origin, meaning it comes from naturally occurring rocks rich in fluorine. Since in the past, surface water was used for drinking water, people did not suffer from the fluoride contamination. With the increase of irrigated agriculture, the ground water level started depleting, requiring people to go deeper. Electricity made it possible to draw water from deep aquifers. This water was also used as drinking water by the community. Earlier, this water was also safe as the recharge from rain water that percolated and reached shallow aquifers and thereafter the deep aquifers would dilute the fluoride content. Now with deforestation, less recharge and over exploitation of groundwater, fluoride is found in many sources, especially the hand pumps installed over the years by the PHED.

Now with water available at more than 250-300 feet and having high fluoride, drinking water has started affecting the community with fluorosis, a disease caused due to excess fluoride consumption. The PHED had conducted a survey of the ground water sources in 6687 tribal habitations and the results showed that around 1003 of these sources were affected by fluoride. The quality of ground water of the other 3763 habitations was also tested. The result revealed that the fluoride content in the water was more than 1.5 ml per litre and hence not within the permissible limits.

WaterAid and Vasudha conducted a health survey in seven villages in Dharampuri block involving the People’s Science Institute (PSI), an agency working on water quality issues. A dental survey was conducted among 1300 children in the age group of 6-16 yrs in 31 schools in three blocks of Dhar, namely Tirla, Dharampuri and Umarban. It was observed that out of 1300 children, over 436 (33.5%) were affected by mild fluorosis, 105 (8%) by moderate fluorosis and 10 (0.8%) by severe fluorosis.This was the effect of prolonged use of fluoride-contaminated water. Most of the drinking water sources in the villages were found to be contaminated. One such village, Bahadra,

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People’s voices on WASH

InterventionWith the objective of making the community understand the gravity of the situation, Vasudha called a Gram Sabha. The team shared the result of the base line survey conducted on the quality of water and also the urine test of 50 individuals with the community in front of the Panchayat representative and health department officers. The data demonstrated the spread of fluorosis among the population. The only option was to find a safe source of drinking water. One partly constructed open well lying unused and a little outside the village was tested and found to have water with permissible limit of fluoride. This well could be the source to be developed for the village water supply scheme. The first task then was formation of a Water and Sanitation Committee in the village. The organisation also carried out a series of awareness programmes and conducted training of the government functionaries involved in the work. This included the Anganwadi workers, school teachers and the workers from the health department. In the schools, wall posters and other information were made available. The community was informed that water from the yellow colour painted hand pumps should not be used for drinking and cooking purposes. The female workers of the organisation carried out house visits and also conducted meetings at various places with women to make them aware of the symptoms of fluorosis. They were given information with the help of pictures, films and videos. They were also advised that until safe drinking water was made available in their village they should take nutritional supplements to reduce the effect of fluoride by consuming more green vegetables, lemon, garlic, milk and jaggery in their daily food.This information made some inroads and also created demands for an alternative system in place.

had only one source having safe water out of seven handpumps. The PHED had capped the six hand pumps declaring them as unfit for drinking water. This resulted in a heavy burden for women and children, who had to spend hours every day to get water from long distances. The children, particularly the girl child, dropped out of school to assist the mother. However, without any source left, the community had no alternative but to continue to drink water with high contents of fluoride. Fluoride in urine is a good indicator of infestation in the human body. Keeping this in mind, urinary survey was conducted in 5 villages amongst selected rural community. A test of urine samples of 50 persons carried out by PSI in Bahadra village revealed presence of fluoride in urine ranging from 1.8 mg/litre to 20 mg/litre. It was thus deemed imperative to provide safe water to the affected community in a sustained manner.

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Since in these villages the PHED was also working under the ‘Fluorosis Unmulan Scheme’, Vasudha decided to seek their support. Under the said scheme the PHED was capping the fluoride affected hand pumps. Since the sharing of the survey carried out by Vasudha and PSI coincided with the action of the PHED, the community somehow felt that the PHED actions were a result of the organisation’s efforts. They were extremely angry with the organisation for creating grave difficulties for them by having the hand pumps capped. At places, many individuals from villages came out to rebuke the team members, blaming them for creating the problem. The capping of the hand pumps affected the women – on whom lay the responsibility of fetching water who were thus required to walk long distances in search of water. The available water sources in the village, which constituted the open shallow wells, could not meet the requirement. Such accusation might easily have demoralised a weaker organisation. But the Vasudha team continued with its efforts to make people understand that the quality of water from these hand pumps would do them immense harm if consumed. Alongside this process, frequent visits to the block and district level officials continued in order to find out a solution.

Villagers were explained why shallow well water was better than water from handpumps that tapped deeper aquifers. During one of these intensive discussions, the village Sarpanch, Mangal Singh, and Ramubai a member of the water and sanitation committee in the village, agreed to use open well water. The Sarpanch who had started the construction of the open well, had stated that since funds were in shortage the well could not be completed. The current Sarpanch declared that if the well could be renovated, it could be developed into a water supply scheme.

The organisation then started the construction work with the help of the panchayat. The scheme design had well-deepening and sanitary protection, pump house, laying pipelines and erecting stand posts with storage tanks in hamlets for community use to collect water. Human resources from the village were mobilized and the Panchayat took the responsibility of deepening of the well. The well water was tested and fluoride level was found at 0.28 ppm, which is under the permissible limit for drinking purposes. The PHED agreed to provide storage tanks, thus making the whole plan a collaborative programme of Panchayat, Block office, PHED and Vasudha, with involvement of the community. The cost so incurred in doing this intervention is shown below in (Table 1).

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People’s voices on WASH

Table 1: Expenses incurred in the drinking water project

Sr. No Name of the work Name of the organisation Amount (in Rs.)1 Construction of well

and sanitary wellBlock Panchayat Dharampuri, WaterAid Bhopal and people’s contribution

4,40,000

2 Pipeline WaterAid Bhopal and people’s contribution 83,250

3 Water collection tank PHED and people’s participation 48,000

4 Stand post and construction work

Block Panchayat Dharampuri, WaterAid Bhopal and people’s contribution

98,750

Total cost 6,70,000

After the construction work, when the water was supplied to the tanks build in the different hamlets for the first time the villagers were very happy. The children who earlier had to carry water to school in water-bottles were happy as they now had safe drinking water available in the school and the midday meal food would also be prepared with the safe water available in the school. The most pleasant thing for the villagers was that the well was covered properly. One hand pump was fixed over it for use in the event of electrical or pump failure. The community now used the well water for drinking and cooking purposes, taking the water from the stand posts, while the handpump water was used for other domestic chores like washing and bathing etc.

Once the construction activities were done, the organisation and the workers worked on the stability and sustainability of the plan by training 10 members of the Village Water and Sanitation Committee (VWSC). They organised regular meetings with the committee members for deciding and collecting water tariff on a yearly basis from the beneficiary families and also make them understand about the role of the committee in the operation and maintenance of the scheme and record keeping. They framed rules for collecting water tax and developed the documentation system. A tariff of Rs. 20 per month per family was decided on and it is collected in two installments in a year after the harvest season. It is used for repairing and maintenance of the scheme (Table 2). For this repairing and maintenance they organised some youths in the village and gave them training.

Table 2: Expenses and source of maintenance funds

Sr. No Name Yearly expenses (In Rs.) Support resource1 Electricity 5,000 Village Panchayat

2 Operator honorarium 6,000 Community

3 Repair and maintenance 7,000 CommunityAs per the water tax collection documents of Bahadra village

The entire work of upkeep and maintenance required some set up at the village level. From among the villagers, three committees were selected to carry out this work. These were:

Operator: 4 -5 youths of the village were trained for repairing and maintenance of the scheme.

School sanitation committee: A team of 10 -15 school children looks after the school stand post and the tap on the tank.

Water quality assessment committee: A committee of 4-6 educated persons of the village monitor the water quality and carryout periodical chlorination.

The other 10 villages have also adopted the same method, taking Bahadra village as a model. However, the interventions may always be not similar and different solutions have to be found out. One instance of a new set of solutions is depicted in the caselet below:

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A different solution

Hasanpur Kalapani village: This village is one of the most fluoride affected villages in Dhar district. Earlier, there were 8 hand pumps functioning in the village but the PHED closed 5 hand pumps. The fluoride level in the water from these handpumps was very high. 40-50 children in the village were found affected by fluorosis and dental fluorosis was quite common amongst adults too. The village has only one hand pump with safe drinking water but it was seasonal and dried in summer. Unfortunately, this village was also not covered under any river water supply plan or alternate source based water supply scheme. Since no safe source was available here, the only option was to treat contaminated water before use. A resin based filter plan was installed in the Davarpura hamlet of this village. The filter was installed on a handpump having 1.6 ppm fluoride. And the rersults were visible slowly. This handpump now serves 24 households from the hamlet. Youth groups from this hamlet are given orientation and hands-on practice for maintenance of the filter, which is imperative for continuous supply of safe water. A monthly tariff collection has also started as the filter will require replacement of filter media after certain time of usage within 8 to 12 months’ time.

Outcomes The work done by Vasudha with the village community has made a significant difference. Some of the changes that we could notice are:

The community now seems determined to abolish fluorosis from their village: With the safe drinking water scheme available to the villagers, they are getting safe drinking water. Even the children and the Anganwadi centre receive supplies of fluoride free water. The fluoride level in urine has shown reduction from 45% to 15% within 6 months of usage of safe water by the people.

Table 3: The community collection for maintenance in Bahadra village

Sr. Year Beneficiary family Collected water tax (In Rs.)1 2009 45 10,800

2 2010 57 13,680

3 2011 67 16,080

4 July 2012 67 8,400Source: Data available with village Water and Sanitation Committee

The community is managing the safe and fluoride less drinking water plan: By looking at this success a few other fluoride affected villages have also constructed shallow well based piped water plans with support from local governance and community cooperation. They have built two wells under the MNREGS scheme of the government. The Panchayat has renovated 6 other open shallow dug wells. The farmers have contributed their own wells towards ensuring safe drinking water plans for their own community. Their operation and maintenance, however, is the responsibility of the VWSC.

Ensuring a disease free life has become the mantra: Water is supplied to Anganwadi centres and schools by the community free of cost. Apart from this, the community has also begun to accept the hygiene related practices of hand washing and taking bath regularly. The children from the village have been singing songs coined by them to raise awareness on fluoride.

More and more villages are today being covered under fluoride safe drinking water supply: An ambitious scheme of the PHED, based on the Narmada river, would cover 72 affected villages of Dharampuri and Umarban blocks of Dhar district. The work started during 2011 and is likely to end by 2014. Vasudha, with support from WaterAid, is involved in the social mobilisation and forming and strengthening of user committees for sustained operation and maintenance of the schemes.

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People’s voices on WASH

LearningsFluoride content in contaminated water, when consumed for a prolonged period, causes dental and skeletal fluorosis. The negative effect is not immediate and so often the community does not relate the problems to this issue of fluoride content. This calls for a massive campaign. Vasudha, along with other agencies, did that and could convince the community against the ill-effects. The major learnings from the programme were:

Joining hands with the government enhances the pace of development: The area was affected by high fluoride content in drinking water. In this situation the organisation with its limited resources could not have reached even one village. By joining hands with the government and ensuring community participation it could reach 13 villages with safe water supply schemes.

Empowering the Gram Sabha is the right strategy: The Gram Sabha is the parliament of our lowest tier in the democratic set-up. It is important that discussions are taken to this unit and decisions made here. The action of motivating individuals through the Gram Sabha resulted in one farmer donating his open well for community use. This happened in other villages too.

Building on the capacity of one and all is the cornerstone to success: Sustainable and safe provision of water can be achieved through a process of consultation. The drinking water plan emerged from these consultative processes. However, prior to these investments, capacity building of officials and the elected representatives of the Panchayats was also done. This helped in increasing the pace of work and achieving the outcomes.

ConclusionThe work done by Vasudha in understanding the problem, communicating the problem to the villagers and finding out solutions with them, has been the hallmark of this intervention. The case depicts one example of a village where it has done this work. But there are scores of other villages where the learning from this experiment has been replicated. The problem continues to be there but with the efforts of the government and the community the future will surely be good for all. The first triumph has been achieved. The community has understood the problem and has designed some ways to deal with it. This is the first step and a right step. Efforts today are being made from all possible directions to sustain the work so initiated.

Village Level People’s Institution Leads the Process

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Village Level People’s Institution Leads the Process

Intervention of a piped water scheme Vijay Singh and Deepak Yadav

The case discusses an intervention done in an area having low rainfall. The terrain is undulating and hence it has high runoff. The high runoff adversely affects groundwater recharge. As a result, the residents of this area face severe shortage of potable water, especially in summer. Parhit, together with community, found the solution by taking water resource management measures.

ContextDatia District in Bundelkhand, MP, receives an annual rainfall of 742 mm on an average. This is about 16% lower than the regional average. Since the terrain is hilly and undulating the rain water flows down fast into the river and streams. An irrigation scheme has harnessed the water and provides irrigation to some parts of this district. The remaining area is totally monsoon dependent.

Kamhar village of Pathari Panchayat is one such village which is located in this rain deficient area. The village has a total population of 593 people distributed amidst 83 households (HH). About 49% of the HH belong to the Scheduled Castes, 38% to OBC and the remaining 13% to the general castes. The settlement pattern of the village is divided into 6 hamlets, each of which is divided across community lines. There are seven hand pumps and one community borewell supplying drinking water to the households. The community bore well is owned by seven families belonging to the general castes. Of the seven hand pumps, two are seasonal, and another two located in the hilly patch have hard water, which is not preferred for drinking. Thus, most of the HH in the village were dependent on the hand pump located at a distance of almost half a kilometre from the village. This hand pump met the requirement of the drinking water for most of the families. Consequently, the women of the village had to work hard every day to fetch drinking water. They devoted 6-8 hours on an average every day to collect water, traverling a distance of 8-10 Kms every day, making several rounds to this single hand pump to fetch water. With water being a scarce resource, sanitation was merely a dream. There were only 3 toilets in the village. This also adversely impacted the health of the villagers.

Parhit, the NGO working in this village, came to the conclusion that working on the issue of water conservation and management of the natural resources would help it to empower the marginalised community. It also believed that unless the people’s institution took charge of development, things would never move or become sustainable. Even in case of ensuring the availability of safe drinking water and sanitation, people’s institutions can play a major role and accordingly began to work. With the objective of ensuring that people have access to sanitation and water, Parhit started working in this village. In 2008, it started integrating its intervention on water resources conservation with that of sanitation.

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People’s voices on WASH

Once the organisation had a feel of the area and of the problem, it thought of carrying out a participatory planning process. Not just in Kamhar village, the process was undertaken in 20 other villages falling under 10 village Panchayats.

While interactions were on with the villagers, the team from Parhit realised that the villagers had less faith in outsiders and even in the ability of their own village Panchayat. The organisation came to the conclusion that the situation required the villagers to first come together and until the villagers had faith in their own institutions, not much headway could be made. Parhit realised that it should be playing the role of facilitator rather than getting involved in directly implementing the work.

Training and building capacity of the village level organisations: Parihit started the process of forming a village level institution with membership drawn from among the residents. The process got initiated with members being nominated by the villagers from each ward. The criteria for selection included interest and commitment to work on social issues. The organisation worker facilitated the process, which took almost six months. After the selection of the members,the task of motivating others started. Similarly, the process of involving others in the process resulted

InterventionParhit started its intervention in 20 selected villages with support from WaterAid with the objective of addressing the issue of water scarcity and also facilitate the community to improve sanitation. This was done to establish a model, which could thereafter be replicated in other villages.

Understanding the issue: In August 2008, Parhit conducted a baseline survey, focusing on water and sanitation status and related issue.The baseline survey data of Kamhar village revealed that only 3 households had some sanitation facilities. The available water resource was much less than the requirement and was not meeting the minimum required government norm of 55 litres per day per person. The discussions during the planning process and the transact walk revealed that water logging was another problem, leading to mosquito breeding and spread of water-borne diseases. The baseline findings were discussed with the community to make them aware of the problems and issues. These discussions suggested that efforts would have to be initiated towards water conservation and management of water resources.

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Parhit also had collected water samples and the result of the water testing gave further impetus to the process when it was presented to the villagers in the meeting. The villagers decided that every house in the village would now onwards dispose of their garbage at a specific location earmarked for them. They were earlier disposing the same near their own house or at any convenient place without realizing the negative impact of it on the environment.

As the villagers show some initial success, they were enthusiastic to do something more. They realised the need to focus on water conservation. The exercises that the organisation had conducted in the initial days had revealed the existence of a pond on the upper ridges of the village. This pond collected the rain water but due to its eroded embankment the water would

in the formation of women’s self-help group and youth group. All these community institutions were taken through a basic process of capacity building. Training sessions on water conservation, hygiene and sanitation were organised. Technical training on hand pump repairs, water quality testing and masons’ training were also conducted. This process continued for almost the next one year.

Moving from identifying the issue to planning the intervention: The organisation wanted to involve people in decision making. As part of this process, the villagers were involved in identifying the problems and examining various options for plausible solutions. During one such discussion on the issue of water logging on the main road, a suggestion from the secretary of the village committee for having soaking pits at various locations came up. This suggestion was feasible. The committee decided on the design, the location, the number of such soak pits and also worked out its costing. Each of the soak pits required around Rs.400 and the committee decided upon the contribution that should come from each household. Interestingly, with the participation of the villagers, the cost of all the 20 soak pits was slightly over Rs.2,000. The immediate effect of this initiative was a clean village road. This was enough to motivate others. The village youths thereafter removed the garbage near the hand pump. The village Panchayat provided them with some support.

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People’s voices on WASH

soon drain out. The organisation and the committee decided to work on renovating the embankment and thought that a masonry check dam would serve the purpose. Together they estimated the costs and got a contribution of Rs.7,000 from the community, which mainly came in the form of free labour. Parhit made a contribution of Rs.72,760.

The village meetings acted as the platform to discuss new work and develop plans for the same. In one such meeting, a few members who had seen roof rain harvesting structures during an exposure visit carried out by Parhit a month ago, brought to the fore the need to do something similar. As a result of these discussions, the committee planned 3 such community and 28 individual roof water harvesting structures. The total expense of Rs.30,000 came from the organisation.

Similarly, the committee also carried out upgrading of the recharge pits and diverting of the waste water from hand pumps into there recharge pits. Damaged handpump platforms were leading to contamination of the ground water. Renovation of these handpumps with recharge pits was done. The cost came to Rs.15,000 per hand pump which came as a grant from the organization. This intervention provided protection to the drinking water structure and also ensured its sustainability. All this could be possible as the issues were presented and discussed with the community. They were inspired by the sustainable water resources management plan.

Planning a drinking water security intervention: The work in the village did bring in some change and ensured the sustainability of water, but the committee wanted to go further. They placed a demand for a tap water scheme in the village itself. They showed willingness to contribute 15 % of the project cost. However, some families were opposed to this intervention. Technical support was taken to design and prepare an estimate of the cost of the plan. The plan was prepared with a cost of Rs.3,18,000. A problem came up when the bore well drilling scheme failed at one location. They had by then spent Rs.40,000 towards this drilling. The community got into action and organised a meeting for finding out another source. In this meeting, along with the staff of WaterAid, one villager was approached to donate his existing well that had good water available throughout year. He agreed to the request and after his written permission the deepening and repairing of the well was done to improve storage. The community decided to build one overhead water tank on the hill near the village as part of this water supply scheme. The design had plans to cover the whole village with tap connections at households and also standposts at some locations.

Thereafter, the committee invited quotations from agencies for the construction of the tank and also for purchase of materials. The construction work of the water tank was finished in the next three months under constant monitoring by the committee. The work of laying and fitting the pipelines in the village was carried out by the youths of the village. This work was done in 15 days.

On the 15th of April 2011, the construction work was over. The costs in the scheme came to Rs.4, 82,295, out of which Rs.4,28,178 came as support from WaterAid, the organisation mobilised another Rs.19,183 and the remaining amount of Rs.53,000 was contributed by the community in cash and in the form of labour. The work was still not over as the DP which was to provide the power to the pump was not functioning properly. The villagers invited the local MLA to inaugurate this scheme on 14th May, 2011. The MLA was told about the electricity issue and on his instruction the electricity department came forward and installed the device. Soon after this the scheme started functioning. The families which initially had doubts are today with the committee and are happy as they are also getting the benefit like all others.

The VWSC has decided to collect Rs.50 from each family per month for the operation and maintenance of this scheme. It has opened a bank account. The contribution from the families which had initial reservations about the scheme is also deposited in this account. The monthly contribution collected from the households is used for paying electricity bills, paying the

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honorarium of the pump operator and for other expenses that the scheme incurs. The pump operator appointed gets an honorarium of Rs.800 per month. The pump operator has also been given some basic training on repair and maintenance and also training in collecting water tax, maintaining records such as cash book, receipt book, member register and connection register. He also has a tool kit with him to carry out small repairs whenever needed. After this entire process was carried out, the scheme was handed over to the Panchayat for managing with support of the village committee.

Since the last one year the Panchayat and the SHG together could build 35 sanitation toilets in the village. The construction work of a few more is under progress. The committee has decided to provide tap water connection free to the school.

OutcomesWorking on the issue of water and sanitation in the water starved location was a challenge. Parhit had to struggle in the beginning to make things start. However, once people saw the benefit and realised the intention of the organisation, they joined in. The collective efforts resulted in some of these outcomes:

The water of the village remains in its territory: Due to efforts in water conservation and recharging through means like roof water harvesting, check dam, recharge pit and deepening of wells, the ground water level increased. In November 2008, the ground water level was at a depth of 11.77 metres. The efforts resulted in increased water level at 4.45 metres (November 2011). The increase in level by 7.29 metres helped in making two of its dysfunctional hand pumps now functional for the entire year. Similarly, the bore wells also began to provide enough water for irrigation purposes.

Reduced work burden: Due to the community water supply scheme in the village, today water is available at the door steps. Earlier the women would spend about 6–8 hours every day to collect water. The time saved from fetching water is now spent in economic activities like agriculture and also at home.

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People’s voices on WASH

Sanitation has translated into better hygiene: The soak pits and garbage collection points within the village have made the environment clean. The efforts have also ensured water availability to the households. There are today 35 households which have constructed their own toilets. Due to the efforts of water testing and use of safe water, water borne diseases have since reduced by over 61%.1

Translating one successful action into another: The collective action made by the community has resulted in increased availability of water. Better management and maintenance of the water sources have given them the feeling that if they work together they will be able bring a change in other areas as well. The community is now preparing itself to implement a soil and water conservation programme for village development. The village water and hygiene committee is now giving its time in the watershed committee.

LearningsThe three-and-a-half years of efforts have brought in certain changes in the water and sanitation situation in this village. It has also provided good insights to the team involved in the efforts. These learnings are important not just for the organisation but for others as well. Some of these learnings were:

Make water and sanitation your entry point activity: Water being an important need, any community can be motivated to work on it. If this intervention is done thoroughly and successfully, as Parhit did, it can generate higher level of faith in the organisation. This makes it easier for the organisation to bring in and link other development agenda in future.

One must make villagers understand that quality of water is an important issue: Often it is seen that people give more importance to availability than quality. Availability of water often becomes their primary concern. The importance of safe water is as great as its availability. This must be explained time and again.

Long term vision is a must for success: Before starting any work one must help people see the work in totality and with a long term vision. This will help in ensuring the sustainability of the efforts so made. Construction is a one-time effort. Unless people understand and develop a vision for its use and upkeep things will reach back to square one within no time. Capacity building of the users and of the institutions is an important strategy to ensure sustainability.

If efforts are given to understand the power dynamics the work happens smoothly: Before one starts working, they must make good efforts to understand the internal dynamics within the community. If this is not done well, the probability of failure of efforts initiated may increase later. Investing time in the beginning to understand the power dynamics is thus an important consideration before any development activity is initiated.

ConclusionThis case throws light on what can be done to prepare the community to act together and that too with accountability. The persistent problem of drinking water and sanitation can be best tackled by forming community based organisations with proper representation of the community. The efforts give better results when participatory planning processes are carried out and all the stakeholders join hands. The result, as has been highlighted in the case, shows that when things are done by following these simple principles of institution development, they become sustainable in the long run. The area that was having difficulties in getting safe drinking water is today water secure.

1

1 Baseline survey conducted in 2008 and again in 2012 by Parhit

The Making of Gram Swaraj

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The Making of Gram Swaraj

A case of Gram Sabha ensuring water security and open defecation free villageSantoshi Tiwari and Ranu Katiyar

An intervention in a small village on providing a sustainable solution to the drinking water problem and thereafter making the village open defecation free, through a sanitation campaign and construction support, has been captured in this case. Samarthan, the organisation that facilitated this process, used the principle of seeking people’s participation in all phases to carry out this intervention. The village today is 100 percent open defecation free and has water connections reaching each and every household. The village water committee manages the infrastructure on its own, following the rules formulated in a consultative manner. The intervention has given this small village name and fame. Today the village is famous in Sehore for having been able to manage a water supply scheme through its own efforts.

ContextDidakhedi is situated in the Chitodiya Lakha Panchayat of Sehore block of Sehore district in MP. It is located at a distance of 13 kilometres from the district headquarters. The village is a small one with about 30 families. Being a small village it is not a priority with the people’s representatives and the district administration. Twenty eight households of this small village belong to the Other Backward Castes (OBC) group while the other two households belong to the Schedule Caste (SC).

Samarthan, a development support organisation, took up Sehore as its laboratory to experiment working with the PRIs. It organised a meeting with the villagers of Didakhedi in the year 2009 for undertaking an intervention around drinking water and sanitation. The meeting also raised awareness about the Gram Sabha and how issues of drinking water and sanitation can be addressed in the Gram Sabha.

Reviewing the past, it was learnt that some 20 to 30 years ago, farming was only a one-season activity dependent on the monsoon. Some of the agricultural fields had shallow wells using diesel operated pumpsets for irrigation. With the advent of electricity, the village people started deepening their wells to draw more water using electric motor pumps. This increased the agricultural activity with the introduction of a second crop and sometimes even a third crop. Over-extraction of water had a negative impact on the ground water and its level fell very fast, making most of the shallow dug wells dry up. It also impacted availability of drinking water. The government provided a solution by installing hand pumps. The village had 4 hand pumps and 2 bore wells. But the hand pumps were not always reliable. Out of the four hand pumps one had not been functioning for a long time. The other hand pump in the school would also dry up around the end of March. Although the other two hand pumps were perennial, yet the yield reduced considerably during summer. Thus, without a source of water within the village, the womenfolk – on whom lay the responsibility of fetching water – would have to traverle a distance of approximately 3 Kms everyday and spend 4 to 5 hours every day on an average to fetch water. The hot summers would push up the demand for water and the women would thus be pushed further to satisfy the needs of their families.

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People’s voices on WASH

When it was suggested that the villagers discuss these issues in their Gram Sabha, they were quite unimpressed. Many said that the Gram Sabhas were carried out only on paper. On the day of the Gram Sabha the secretary would come and take signatures of the adult population. The villagers were totally disillusioned about the functioning of the Gram Panchayat. As their village was small and since they had fewer voters compared to other villages in their Panchayat, they were generally neglected in all decisions and implementation of government schemes. Their village was never given priority. People’s representatives from the Panchayat would rarely visit Didakhedi and would not even discuss their issues in the meetings.

The discussions with individual villagers and in small groups led to the realisation that it was the women and the young girls who suffered the most. Among the 30 families, two families were slightly better off. They had their own tractor and trolley and would use them to bring in water. With others it was the women members who had to traverse long distances everyday to fetch water.

Since the last 15 years Samarthan has been working on the issue of sustainable local governance and people’s participation. Samarthan had learnt from its experiences that it is through participation of the people that any development is possible and sustainable. The organisation wanted the Gram Panchayat to take note of these issues and do something. However, with the situation being slightly different it thought of doing the work without the Panchayat in the picture. It started its experiment to find solutions to these two issues but kept the participation of the local community as its centre-stage strategy. Samarthan also discussed with WaterAid the idea of experimenting on the issue of drinking water and sanitation in 42 villages of Sehore.

InterventionIn July 2009, the organisation planned to strengthen the Gram Sabha in some of its villages as part of ensuring that these village institutions took up the issues of drinking water and sanitation. The process started in September. Baseline surveys involving the villagers were carried out. The process also helped the organisation to build rapport with the community.

Practice of open defecation was normal as having a toilet was never considered a priority.This created unhygienic conditions within the village. Women were the worst sufferers. They had to go out to far off places during the day for open defecation or wait for the sun to set. Some 30 years ago, there were patches of tree cover in the village but now with agricultural fields all around very few such areas were available for open defecation.

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Interactions with villagers through surveys and participatory appraisals underscored the fact that women faced difficulties in getting drinking water during the summer months and also suffered from rebuke of other villagers when they went out for open defecation. The village also was not in any position to influence as it was a small one. Under the circumstances, the organisation wanted the villagers themselves to find out a solution. It thus decided to carry out a polling event to see people’s preference for a solution. They decided to hold an election on sanitation and hygiene.

This election was carried out in a manner almost identical to other regular elections. The difference was that instead of electing a candidate the voters had to vote for hygiene or the lack of it. The process of election, that is having some campaign prior to polling, having a polling booth, ballot paper, polling officer etc., were all in place. One of the members of the block level Panchayat was made the polling officer. Two youths from the village were appointed as polling agents and the revenue officer at the block level was appointed as the election supervisor. On the 10th of October 2009, the election was organised. Each and every member of the village was called upon to cast their votes. The result showed that 98% of the village population had cast their votes for hygiene. This process established people’s choice for hygiene and sanitation.

The polling gave a clear verdict. The residents wanted drinking water and sanitation as their priority items. Now the time was ripe to move towards finding a way out of the problem. However, the people did not have much faith in the Panchayat and accused of it being unresponsive to their demands. The idea of taking the mandate to the Panchayat did not evoke any positive response. The organisation realised that the solution had to be found within these 30 households rather than taking the issue to the Panchayat for discussion and support. The people were in no mood to take up the issue with the Panchayat. They seemed to be sure that such institutions would say something and do something else, or simply delay the process, and it would be the villagers who would suffer the consequences.

The organisation mooted the idea of finding out a solution within the 30 households. This was a spark that inspired the villagers. The organisation members identified the village Gram Sabha as the institution to initiate actions. Several consultations and exercises were carried out to come out with a one-year development plan for the village. The youths of the village, who were involved in all these exercises, were greatly motivated and wanted to take the plan ahead with support from Samarthan.

After preparing the one-year development plan, which included solutions for tackling the issue of drinking water and sanitation, the same was placed for discussion in the Gram Sabha. The Panchayat president and secretary were informed that the village would be organising the Gram Sabha. The Gram Sabha was finally organised in November 2009. Both the village president and secretary were present. They had been fully informed about the objective of the process. Women members from all the households of the village participated. This was the first time that the villagers saw that discussions can take place and the Panchayat and the officer responsible for management would also attend the same.

However, the purpose of the meeting was not to seek support from the Panchayat. It was to get the village plan approved in the Gram Sabha. It was decided in the Gram Sabha that the villagers would build a small water tank with their own contribution. As they were sowing wheat at that point of time, the work could only be carried out in December. They also decided to build a toilet in each family by March 2010.

The organisation helped the village committee in designing the tank and discussed with the village committee matters like what materials would have to be purchased and educated the villagers on the low cost toilet model. The organisation mentioned that out of the cost of Rs.2,200 only Rs.500 would be the contribution from the households and this contribution could come as

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Once the sowing of the wheat was over around the 20th of December, the villagers again came together and started working towards building the water tank. To bring about meaningful participation the organisation convened a general meeting with the active members of the community. The meeting was to distribute the workload among all households. The aged persons took upon themselves the task of monitoring the work of construction. The educated youths of the village took up the responsibility of purchasing the required raw materials for the construction of the water tank and the women took up the responsibility of keeping records of funds and materials. Thus there was participation from all the members of the community.

It had been decided in the meeting that before purchasing any material the committee would obtain at least three quotations from three different suppliers and only after the purchase committee had reviewed the quotations and approved the same on the basis of parameters like quality and price. The bills and voucher would be placed before the purchase committee. They also decided to meet regularly at least once a week till the construction work was completed. The regular meetings would be called as per the requirement and everyone would have to participate. During these meetings it was also decided that they would collect Rs.50 per month from each of the households as maintenance fund for the water tank. These three committees, namely the purchase committee, record keeping committee and the construction supervision

labour contribution as well. Rambabai was the first person to come forward to get the toilet constructed. Another 15 families also started digging pits in their houses. Women took the larger share of interest in constructing these toilets as it was they who suffered silently from not having the facility.

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committee with around 10 members in each committee, thus represented all the households in this small village.

The construction work for building the water tank started on 20th December, 2009. Contribution was received from all the households. Some gave money, some brought in materials like sand using their tractors and some gave free labour. One of the members contributed by getting a trolley of sand worth Rs.8,000 and all the others households provided free labour for the construction. They also collected cash contribution of Rs.3,000 for fitting the pipelines. The PHED of the Panchayat gave Rs.40,000 for buying a motor and the organisation contributed Rs.1,76,793 from support it received from WaterAid. The tank was built with a capacity to store 9,500 litres of water. The technical guidance was taken from a retired engineer of the PHE department who was paid an amount of Rs.500 for each visit. It was the committee who did all the transactions after ratification by the entire Gram Sabha.

As the construction of the tank progressed, so did the building of individual household toilets. By 15th January, 17 families had already constructed their toilets. The next Gram Sabha reviewed the progress made in the construction of the tank as also the household toilets. The villagers were inquisitive to know why some families had not yet built their toilets. Since the organisation was involved in doing the motivation the opinion of the staff members was sought. The organisation realised that despite its efforts to motivate the families, excuses came as these families were involved in irrigating their wheat farms and hence had not been able to find the time to start the process. The Gram Sabha realised that it had to make a decision and ensure that all villagers stick to the agreed deadline of March 2010. It was a known fact that irrigation is done by men and hence the women from these families could spare time to work with the mason. The Gram Sabha impressed upon these 11 families the necessity to put up the toilets and convinced them to collect the necessary raw materials and inform the mason to start the work. These 11 families agreed to the suggestion of the Gram Sabha and agreed to meet the deadline.

However, to mandate the process further, on 28th January the Gram Sabha passed a resolution to give tap connection to those households which had constructed their toilets by the set date. This made the families who were shying away from construction, realised that the Gram Sabha was serious in its approach and immediately got down to do their job. Soon they got the toilets constructed and ensured that they also got the household tap connection.

By the 25th of March,2010 the construction of the water tank was complete. The water connections had by then reached 28 households except the two Dalit households who had been adamant about ignoring the Gram Sabha’s resolution. These two families lodged a complaint with the collector’s office that since they belonged to the Dalit community, the other community was harassing them. The villagers represented their case to the collector and mentioned that the decision had been taken in the Gram Sabha and all the households except those two had abided by it. The collector suggested that the families who were better off could come forward and help these two families to build their toilets. Some more affluent families agreed and provided them the raw material and helped them to build toilets. With this, Didakhedi achieved open defecation free status and also all households had tap water connection.

The bigger challenge for the group was over with this construction. The construction of the water tank and toilets ensured drinking water supply and an open defecation free village. But now the challenge was to run the system and ensure regular upkeep, maintenance and payment of electricity bills. The next Gram Sabha discussed these issues threadbare and it was decided that Rs.600 per household per year would be collected for maintenance. They also discussed the keeping of records of expenses. The families were told to pay the amount in advance or do it twice every year- once after harvest of wheat (around March) and the other after harvesting soyabean (October).

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Now each household has water at their door steps. Monthly tariff is also realized regularly. A young person had been appointed as operator and it was decided that he would be given Rs.500

per month. But the electricity bill of Rs.1,100 every second month under the business category caused them to re-examine the provision they had made for operation and maintenance. They decided that every month one person from each family would take up the responsibility of operating the pump so that they would not have to pay Rs.500 per month to the operator. They also moved an application to the electricity department requesting them to consider the

connection as domestic. After a few representations the department accepted this request and promised to make suitable adjustments on the bills from the next billing period. On an average the expenses are within their limit of Rs.700-800 per month. One household is responsible to run the pump for one month. It is a small task of switching on and off the system and opening and closing of the check valves for the water to reach all the households. Till date, these systems are being followed and there has not been a single day since April 10, 2010 when water has not reached the households. The records of the system are kept and every financial detail is discussed in the meetings.

The news of Didakhedi has reached various government offices. The village keeps having visitors. The PHED had brought in their engineers during one of their training programmes to see and learn from the villagers. The PHED has also recently prepared a water security plan and has constructed roof rain water structures and other recharge structures like small check dams across local drainage channels to enhance groundwater level. This work is being done by the department, but the villagers keep eye on the materials that are being purchased. They have also been keeping records of what materials keep coming to the village and have raised questions a few times on the quality aspects. The PHED was compelled to replace some of the materials after the Gram Sabha complained about the quality.

OutcomeThe work done by the Samarthan team with the villagers of Didakhedi has solved a greater part of the problems that the villagers, particularly women and girls, faced. The outcomes that this intervention brought forth are:

People have realised the value of Gram Sabha and this has come to them as a gift in disguise: Samarthan has helped in building the capacity of the villagers and emphasised that it is important that decisions that affect everyone should be taken in the Gram Sabha. The villagers organised three such Gram Sabhas during a period of six months and each Gram Sabha witnessed meaningful dialogue and participation of men and women from Didakhedi. Now the faith in the Gram Sabha has increased.

One now needs to press the button and water starts flowing: With all the households having tap connections, women need not travel far to fetch water for household needs. Their time is saved as also the efforts that they would put in every day for 3-4 hours. They have been using the saved time on agricultural work and taking care of their children.They now know when the water will flow and in case of emergency they need to inform the operator and one press on the button makes the water flow.

Celebration of water tank opening

On the 10th of April, the painting and decoration work was completed and the tank was ready for inauguration. The villagers decided on a grand celebration. Every household poured their contribution to make this inauguration a memorable event. They invited members from the Panchayats, the local print media, the organisation and other adult members from the adjoining two villages. An elderly woman and active member of the Gram Sabha, Rambabai, was given the honour of cutting the ribbon. They celebrated by feasting on ‘Dal Batti’, a traditional dish.

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The end of insult: Women and young girls found themselves in awkward situations when they went for defecation in the open. They faced comments from other villagers. Now with toilets in their own house the insults and embarrassment are a thing of the past. They also do not need to wait for the dark to relieve themselves.

Civil engineers are learning to become social engineers: In one of the state-level workshops of PHED, the administration wanted them to see the water distribution structure managed by the community. The administration brought 40 civil engineers to Didakhedi. Many of the engineers were amazed to see what the villagers have done. A few of them commented that even with so much education they have never been able to do such a splendid work. They wanted to learn the trick and it was the villagers who told them their story of how they had arrived at all decisions and managed all engineering details. Many of them realised that social engineering probably holds the key to such an endeavour.

LearningsThe work involving the villagers in each and every process of decision-making and using the Gram Sabha as the forum has given some very specific sets of learning for the team. It is important that

Didakhedi is now a known name in Sehore: The village today has a unique identity, with just 30 families which was never on the priority list of government departments and the village Panchayat. During the intervention the organisation made efforts to build the capacity of the villagers. Getting organised has helped them to understand their strength. They have been able to do what others often struggle to achieve. The village has water connections at every house-something even modern cities and towns aspire for. All these efforts have brought for the villagers many laurels. Visitors from government and non-government agencies come here and learn about the work. In recognition of the good work done by the village, they have been gifted water security plan by the PHED. This plan will cost about Rs.3.9 million. This amount has come as the PHED wants to showcase the village as one where people’s participation in decision making and management has resulted in water reaching every household. The water security plan is to ensure that these efforts remain sustainable.

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others also see some of these learnings as it would help them to achieve what the villagers of Didakhedi have been able to achieve.

One needs to think out of the box to achieve success: Had the villagers who once had apathy for the Gram Sabha not made efforts to build their faith in their own Gram Sabha these outcomes would never have been possible. The Gram Sabha today is for them a forum which has helped to build faith and transparency. Every household in the village is aware about the cost of this intervention, the methods they have applied to get the materials purchased and they hold the structure as theirs. They take due care of the infrastructure and use the forum to discuss issues related to upkeep and maintenance.

One can find options if one is determined to solve the problem at hand: Come what may, if determination is there one shall always achieve what one wants to achieve. The villagers of Didakhedi have solved their problem by organising themselves. They have set up their facility for drinking water and sanitation without the support of the Panchayat and administration. Today these two agencies have been knocking at the doors of Didakhedi and are trying to implement their own schemes there.

Seeing is believing: People believe once they see for themselves. By looking at the work done by villagers in Didakhedi, two adjoining villages, namely Chittodiya Lakha and Bhatuani, have started constructing toilets. They have formed their own committee to push for such initiative.

Outsiders should refrain from imposing their objectives on villagers: In development work it is important that practitioners create the demand for work rather than impose their own solutions. In Didakhedi, the problem was drinking water and sanitation was not the priority. The organisation soon understood this and gave importance to help facilitate processes for the felt needs. Interestingly, the villagers realised that with one need being met, the other need can also be met by them. Whereas in many villages the sanitation programme is implemented, but the water need is seldom addressed, today Didakhedi has both.

ConclusionThe intervention enables those involved with similar efforts to take cognisance of the processes that were initiated. The NBA which helps construct toilets through incentive approach to households creates infrastructure which people do not often use. The villagers need water and probably something else before such schemes are taken. The planners and implementers need to shun this top-down approach of giving what villagers do not need or feel no need of and take on an approach of facilitating the process of change. Probably, one will have better outcomes.

The Power of Collective Action

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The Power of Collective Action

Narad Tembhukar and Bharatram Mandvi

Providing potable drinking water to all has been a development agenda of the government since the first five year plan. It is a fact that safe drinking water can prevent many water-borne diseases and contribute immensely to the good health and sound economy of the community and the nation at large. However, due to lack of real people’s participation and good governance, the development programmes –including the provision of safe drinking water – fail to really take off and people are left to fend for themselves. But with changing time awareness amongst people is growing because of several initiatives taken by the government and NGO. People are trying to assert themselves to access their entitlements. A small intervention of restoring the tube well for drinking water at Shantinagar village carried out by Lokshakti Samaj Sewi Sanstha (LSS) is a testimony to this.

ContextThe state of CG mostly comprises of Scheduled Tribes (ST), Scheduled Castes (SC), Dalits and other backward classes (OBCs). According to different survey reports, most of the rural areas of CG lack basic amenities like safe drinking water and sanitation. Two major reasons for such a scenario are:

Local Self Governance (PRI) is weak in terms of generating resources, capacity to plan and 1. execute and in demonstrating their decision-making power

Lack of political will amongst the local political parties towards these issues.2.

If the Gram Panchayat becomes a bit more proactive it can resolve basic issues like availability of drinking water and sanitation and can help in effective implementation of different flagship programmes of the government.

The NGO LSS has been working in different parts of Rajnandgaon district, conducted a base line survey during January 2012 to understand the issues relating to water and sanitation in the 172 villages of 58 Gram Panchayats of Ambagarh Chowki block. The survey revealed that majority of the population in 45 villages did have adequate drinking water in the village itself. People either fetch drinking water from distant villages or wait for hours to fetch water from the partially functional tube wells or hand pumps of the village. In a small village called Shantinagar, there was only one hand hump for about 20 families. This hand pump was out of order for the last 5 months. These 20 families of Shantinagar used to fetch drinking water from the nearby village of Haditola, which was around one kilometre away. As a result, their daily routine was disturbed. The families whose sustenance depended on daily wage labour work had to take half a day off for fetching water from the other village. This adversely impacted their income. It also impacted their relation with the families of Haditola, who were paying the opportunity cost to wait for water near their hand pump. LSS decided to work with the community for overcoming the problem.

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InterventionThe LSS staff held a series of meetings with the men and women of the village to understand what initiatives from their side or Gram Panchayat or weekly market (haat) management had been taken to repair the hand pump. It was learnt that the village people had once lodged a complaint with the Sarpanch and despite his repeated efforts to get the PHED mechanic to repair the hand pump, there was no result. Besides the hand pump being dysfunctional, the soak pit and drainage system surrounding the hand pump was also absent. The LSS staff organised a meeting with the Mitanin committee (ASHA worker and the village health committee), especially focusing on the issue of the dysfunctional hand pump and sanitation. It was learnt that the committee was not aware of its responsibilities. Even the members were not serious about attending the meeting. In the first meeting there were only four members and in the third meeting the strength went up to 14, which encouraged the LSS staff as well as the Mitanin members. The issue of the defunct hand pump brought the committee members together to initiate some action.

Sukhdev Yadav, a member of the committee, expressed his frustration over how they had requested the Sarpanch to get the tube well repaired, and how it had not yielded any result, and ultimately they had given up. The LSS staff motivated the community at Shantinagar as well as Haditola to organise a public hearing an interface between the elected PRI members and the community to ponder over various issues being faced by different villages. The first hearing was organised in Haditola village, where people from Shantinagar also participated. The villagers participated in this public hearing and raised issues they were grappling with. A memorandum to this effect was prepared for the President of the Block level Sarpanch Association.

So far no written complaint had been given to the Sarpanch about the defunct hand pump. Consequent to the public hearing, a memorandum was prepared, signed by all the households, and submitted collectively to the Sarpanch. The memorandum was drafted by the LSS staff. The Sarpanch became serious after receiving a written complaint and assured to do the needful. However, when the memorandum produced no effect on the Sarpanch for a week, the people decided to write another memorandum to the officer in charge of the PHED and submited it by hand collectively. The PHED office was 25 Km away and the people collected contributions from every household to hire a vehicle so that they could go together and submit the memorandum. They met the Sub Divisional Officer (SDO) of the PHED at Ambagarh Chowki and submitted the memorandum and asked for an early solution, or else they would approach the District Collector. The SDO assured them that he would take care of the issue at the earliest. The very next day a

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OutcomeThe initiative taken up by the residents of Shantinagar had some very specific outcomes. Some of them are:

The waiting for water is over now: More than the drinking water, the initiative has brought many other sustainable benefits to the community. The collective efforts have increased their strength and have made them confident of taking up any development issue in future. They have come to realise that unity is strength. Their drudgery of going to another village and waiting there for hours to fetch drinking water is now a thing of the past.

The people are now confident and want to get other government programmes for themselves: This particular experience was the first of its kind for the Shantinagar community and has generated aspiration amongst them about various flagship programmes of the government. As a result of this particular initiative, the officials and elected PRI members have become more alert about the collective action of the community. The villagers have now learned the art of doing advocacy and putting pressure on the system to respond.

The intervention has started inspiring many other villages: This particular action has inspired the communities in nearby villages also. One incident has already occurred in Dogargaon village, where people collectively submitted a written demand to the Gram Panchayat, Janpad Panchayat and PHED and got one new hand pump installed and also two defunct hand pump repaired.

mechanic was deputed to assess the damage in the hand pump and within two days the pump was repaired. Going in a group to meet the SDO worked as an immediate pressure on him to act. The hand pump was restored to its normal condition and people started getting drinking water.

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LearningsThis has been a small intervention but one with wide ramifications. Some learnings from this intervention were:

Believe in the fact and then work towards making the community capable: This intervention depicts that the community is often capable of doing advocacy and putting pressure on the administration and local self governance if they understand properly what their entitlement is and how to articulate it at the appropriate forum. Here, in this case the verbal complaints did not yield any result. Even a written complaint to the Sarpanch did not evoke a positive response. However, when the matter was taken up at a higher level, it evoked immediate response.

One should knock at other doors if some doors do not open: People have come to understand that if some work is not done at certain level, then it should be taken up at the higher (appellate) level. Hence, when the community gets organised they may require some handholding support at the initial stage, but once they achieve something their confidence level goes up and they take up other issues suo moto.

Giving them is not the answer always, standing by them may work better: This also gives a learning that people in crisis understand the problem better and that is the best opportunity to mobilise and organise them. Once they are organised, they tend to become self reliant, then the job of the NGO becomes easier and it can plan its withdrawal from the empowered villages.

ConclusionA small intervention can create a big impact. This particular case of restoring one hand pump in the village of Shantinagar has created a wider impact on the issues relating to people’s entitlements and the power of collective action and advocacy. Needless to mention, the catalytic role played by the NGO LSS has been most critical to the entire initiative.

Water Gives Power

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Water Gives Power

Mohsin Ali and Deepak Patel

The following case narrats an intervention that was initiated in a highly stratified society, where caste-based discrimination had been the order. Discrimination against a certain segment of society was exercised by the dominant castes, which also enjoyed control over the economic and political resources in society. With the control over almost all kinds of resources (economic and political) in the hands of the affluent section, the downtrodden led a miserable life. They enjoyed little dignity and their women were particularly oppressed. The dominance and oppression were especially evident in case of people’s access to basic resources (drinking water for instance) that could provide a decent living standard. The poor and the oppressed had to struggle hard to have access to basic civic amenities like water and sanitation. The case discusses the efforts undertaken by Dharti-a civil society organization, whose facilitation paved the way for behavior change within the oppressed community. The social change process that got the fillip started with access to basic civic amenities but later resulted in reducing the power imbalance that existed within the community. The powerful have understood that they also need to work in tandem with the powerless for accessing the civic amenities. The process is just a beginning.

ContextChambal Valley is known for its organic social divide. This divide is based on caste hierarchy, wherein the dominant caste is seen often to engage in practices that reinforce the divide. Morena, a district in this Valley, also carries forward the age old practice of caste-based discrimination. Here a certain segment of society suffers from persistent discriminations. This district is also one of the socially backward districts of northern MP.

The caste-based discrimination is one of the core issues of the area. This has created differences between sections of society, and has affected the poorer section economically. The dominant group, by virtue of its control over almost all economic resources (land, water and now also governance), has marginalized a particular section of the society. The centuries-old practice of marginalization has resulted in making the particular section live a life where marginalization is understood as something to be accepted. Mainstreaming this deprived marginalized and excluded section and providing them with rights and entitlements have been seen as strategies by the civil society. However, it is easier said than done. The process of making them stand and raise their voices is a slow process where things may not always work in favour of the oppressed.

Ambah block in Morena district is now witness to this process of social change. Heretoo, inequity in society had been one of the chronic issues. The oppressed caste groups were deprived of access to basic civic amenities. For them having potable drinking water and sanitation facilities was a dream. The women-folk were more at the receiving end as it was their responsibility to fetch drinking water and hence they faced the wrath of the caste system almost on a regular basis.

The Dharti Gramotthan Evam Sahbhagi Gramin Vikas Samiti was established in 1996 with the vision and mission to provide equal development opportunities to all. Dharti started the WASH programme in Ambah block in 2003 since water and sanitation facilities were seen to be directly linked with dignity and gender-based discrimination. During the baseline survey that Dharti

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Intervention Dharti started its intervention in Nayapura village in 2008. The primary objective was then to provide equality to the deprived class. Dharti, as part of its effort to understand the community, carried out a PRA exercise. This included social mapping, resource mapping, wealth ranking, and identifying issues related to disease, drinking water and civic amenities etc. The social mapping and resource distribution map both showed that one section of the community, which had most of the resources and were relatively well off, stayed at one location whereas the SC community lived at another location. The land holding pattern also showed that about 800 Ha of good quality land out of the 1000 Ha available was in the hands of the dominant group whereas the remaining land (which was of lower quality) belonged to the SC community. The study also gave insights into the non-availability of civic amenities like the sanitation facilities, overcrowding and waste of time to collect drinking water and water for household activities. These issues were discussed in small groups and the organization noted the prevalence of illness among children and women due to poor sanitation and unhygienic living conditions. This was thus understood to be the first set of action points for the organization to focus on.

conducted, it was realized that only 7% of the population had some access to sanitation facilities. The survey also showed that availability of drinking water was also poor. The analysis of the baseline information showed that this problem was more severe among the SC, ST and OBCs. Dharti thereafter began its efforts in 5 villages of Ambah block in 2003, where the problem was understood to be the most severe. The number of villages slowly increased to 13 by 2005. Since 2008, Dharti operated in about 30 panchayats of Ambah block.

Nayapura village under Khireta panchayat in Ambah block had a total of 158 households, which included 90 households belonging to the Scheduled Caste (SC) community and the remaining 68 to the upper castes. The upper castes were the Brahmins and Thakurs (Rajputs). The sanitation condition of this village was poor. The village did not have a single toilet. The village had 5 hand pumps, of which two were constructed for use of the SC community. The other caste groups had access to 3 hand pumps and they had the resources to construct another three. Thus among 68 families they had 6 handpumps, while the 90 households belonging to the SC community had only two, of which one would always be in some state of non-functionality. Thus fetching water for drinking and other household chores was a difficult task which the women from the SC community had to shoulder.

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Thus, it was imperative to start work with the marginalized community and elevate them from their current status. Dharti began with the formation of various community based organizations (CBOs) like the Yuva mandal (youth group), Mahila mandal (women’s group), Kishori mandal (adolescent girls’ group) and children’s group. The main strategy behind the formation of these people’s organizations in the village was to create a platform for decision-making around issues that affected the poor and also to bring about the required change to hygienic behaviour in the village through these CBOs.

As part of its strategy, Dharti carried out capacity building programmes which included government functionaries like the ASHA and Aanganwadi workers, Multi Purpose Workers (MPW), Auxiliary Nurse cum Midwife (ANM), and school teachers. Dharti also invested in building the capacity of the local panchayats and of the existing VWSC members. It also identified some active members from the youth group and some members from the VWSC and trained them in the repairing of hand pumps. This was done to build skills which would later serve as another livelihood option for them. Dharti also oriented the PRIs members on their roles and responsibilities regarding water sanitation and hygiene.

To begin with, Dharti took up the issue of sanitation. It supported the construction of 5 toilets as models to motivate the community to construct more toilets. It provided monetary incentives to the tune of Rs.1,000 per toilet. The first set of families who took the benefit comprised members of the VWSC. They were also provided with hygiene mascots and were expected to motivate others through use of IEC materials, so as to improve sanitation behaviour among the people.However, soon the realization came that promoting toilets could be meaningful only when availability of water was assured.

Dharti had also carried out initiatives to install roof water harvesting system at the school of Nayapura with financial support from WaterAid.This was done as the water level in the school hand pump falls during summer season, making it run dry and children and teachers suffer. The teachers and students since then are aware and they take interest in the maintenance of this infrastructure.

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Everything was there except the electricity. Thus began another chapter of struggle. They discussed various options and also tried out a few. They got a generator set to supply power, but soon realized that this would be a costly affair. They were not in a position to bear such high costs. They also understood that the scheme could not run without electricity. They started making applications for restoration of supply. The memorandum for restoring the electricity supplies was given to the panchayat office, to the PHED, Collector, and MLA. Dharti stood by

As little progress could be made beyond five IHHL, VWSC members raised the issue of water scarcity at their meetings. After several rounds of meetings and discussions it was decided that a water supply scheme would be planned to serve the SC community and it would be constructed to meet their demand of water. It was also agreed that this scheme would be managed by the community. The community and the organization discussed the scheme with some technical experts from the PHED and together designed a scheme with a storage tank of 40,000 litres. The scheme provided water connection at the doorsteps of households. The plan and the estimates followed suit and the cost was estimated around Rs.4,54,000. They also discussed how the cost would be contributed by the community so that the remaining could come from the organization. A small committee was formed to collect the people’s contribution. The community contribution amount was agreed at Rs.22,000, of which cash contribution was to be Rs.10,000 and the remaining would come as labour contribution from the 90 households. They also selected from among themselves a few members who would be involved in the purchase of materials required. However, this committee had to discuss the costs with VSWC before the placing of the order.

The construction of this pipeline scheme was completed within three months with active community participation at each and every stage of construction. The community was involved in the procurement of construction material, maintaining quality, purchase of machinery, motor and pipelines and necessary fittings and fixtures. When the construction was almost about to get completed, the dominant caste group within the village felt that once this scheme became operational, their monopoly over resources would decline and so they influenced the electricity department to disconnect the electricity supply. This was done to ensure the failure of the community pipeline water scheme, which was being seen as a scheme to empower the SC households.

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them and took care of the representations. The local MLA was also contacted, but nothing moved for the next five months. However, the villagers knew that if they kept their hopes alive, it would help them tide over the crisis, and so they continued with their struggle.

After a long struggle of almost about one year the electricity connection was restored. An additional transformer was required to run the motor and this was obtained by paying Rs.64,000. This time the community came up with a matching contribution of Rs.34,000. They knew that this new connection would give them independence from others, who would now not be able to play foul. They also knew that they had to show that they could and so their contribution was actually a means to restore their dignity. Finally, the much awaited day came when they could start the scheme. It was a festive day, a day of winning independence. A ‘bhandara’ (community food festival) with Ramayan Path was organized and the little girls of the community were first served the water that came out of this water supply scheme.

The community today collects a water tax of Rs.50 per month from each household having water connection. The water is supplied two times a day. The committee maintains all necessary records. The amount collected as water tax is used for paying electricity bills and for taking care of minor repairs and maintenance work of the scheme. The community is conscious about the usage and themselves take care of maintenance of the taps.

When the dominant community saw the success of this community water pipeline scheme, they also started thinking of getting their own connections. They were no longer interested in standing in queues at the hand pumps and laboring hard to pump out water. They wanted to get a connection at their doorstep too. They requested the O & M committee to extend the connection to their locations. The O & M committee could have refused but good sense prevailed. They understood that for them this was an opportunity to reestablish relations. At the end they would have to co-exist. They conveyed the message that giving water would be possible if the dominant community spent their own money to get the pipelines laid. They are now waiting for the dominant community to get the resources.

The other interesting development that took place with the establishment of the water connection was the emphasis on having sanitary toilets constructed. Since then, over 40 new units have been constructed with the larger share coming from the households.

OutcomesThe work done by Dharti for almost ten years now in the area and about three years in the village has given some very definitive outcomes. These are:

Enhanced the negotiation power of the excluded community: Water is now available to all the households. The families from the upper castes, who had earlier opposed the implementation of the scheme, have approached the organization and also the water committee for providing them with water connection. The committee allowed them to take water, provided they laid their own pipelines. The committee is also contemplating some plans to expand the connection to other households. This they understood will add to their monthly income as tariff can be collected from others as well – thus increasing income.

The community has gained in knowledge and confidence: The self-confidence among the SC community has shot up. They have realized that coming together can help them to realize their goals. During their long struggle for electricity the community had to run from pillar to post. However, the struggle gave them information about many government schemes and they learnt what they can achieve if they remain united. They have started taking interest in several other government rural development schemes like MNREGS, NBA and Nirmal Vatika. They have been discussing with the organization to help them to get access to these schemes.

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Toilets gained along with water: When the organization started its work the village did not have a single toilet. Dharti had demonstrated five toilets as models and thereafter till date 40 more toilets have been constructed. The toilets could not be promoted earlier because there was no water. Availability of water at the doorstep has improved the sanitation behaviour of people.

Success has since multiplied: When the success story of this community water pipeline scheme spread, several government officials from the PHED and other departments came to see the same. They have now replicated the same design at two other places within the same block.

Time saved is money earned: The time spent by women and men in fetching water from distant handpumps and standing in long queues is now virtually a thing of the past. This saved time is used in other activities. Working under MNREGS is now possible. About 20 families couldn’t go to work earlier because of the burden of fetching water. Today, out of them 16 families are going for work. Women, who were also over-occupied earlier, are now investing time in agricultural activities. They now also have time for their children.

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LearningsWorking with a marginalized community and that too when another community is powerful is not easy. Dharti made this possible. As it worked to bring resources and amenities to the marginalized community, it did face problems. These added up as learnings for them. Some of the important sets of learning were:

Include not only the excluded: When the intervention was being planned there was a power imbalance. An important learning is that neglecting one community and working for the other, which is often a strategy adopted, only increases bitterness. It is important that organizations should choose to work with both but should not compromise on the basic principles. It should not allow the dominant group to snatch or tilt the balance towards itself. In this intervention, when the dominant group realized that it gained from being equal, it also started working and did not create any form of resistance.

One must always have a plan but this plan should not be water tight: Planning should be flexible at certain fronts. The plan for finance and time should not always be water tight. There should be some degree of flexibility in the plan with some alternative strategies in place in case something does not happen as planned. As in this case, the community feud resulted in disconnection of the earlier electricity connection and the need for having expenditure for a fresh connection. This had not been taken into account. Probably, earmarking some funds for exigencies would be a wise decision.

One should accept things as they happen: The community feud played mischief. But it also brought the marginalized community together. They knew for sure that this probably would help them show what they can do. In the earlier instance they could make cash contribution of Rs.10,000 but in this case they could give Rs.34,000 from their own earnings. The community knew that if they did not come together now, they would have to silently suffer.

Community participation and monitoring is important as it brings transparency: The success achieved at Nayapura could be achieved because of community participation and constant engagement of the community in monitoring. The community shouldered many responsibilities. Community participation ensured transparency in the system and with the community directly involved there was no lack of trust in the organization. It was they who took most of the decisions.

ConclusionNorthern MP is known as being feudal. Dharti tackled the problem of feudal dominance and oppression by bettering the access to basic civic amenities like sanitation and water. This actually helped the oppressed to gain confidence and dignity. This would not have been possible without the facilitation of the promoting NGO. Convergence with government schemes also can get catalyzed if the effort of the community and the NGO takes to these strategies. This intervention is a typical one where the demand and supply gap was filled through the facilitation of the NGO and the determination of the community. This also triggered the pace of development and encouraged its replication in the vicinity.

No More Tears

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No More Tears

A sanitation programme leads to Smokeless cooking Vineet Saraswat

This intervention narrates the journey to development of a typical village so engaged and busy with its agricultural chores that it had no time to understand the softer issues that indirectly affect its development. The community laid much emphasis on working on enhancing their livelihoods through improved production systems but gave little importance to issues of quality of life and dignity. Kalptaru Vikas Samiti made every effort to dispel this misconception and through consultations and participation they could make deeper inroads into this uncharted territory. They made working on rights their entry point activity. The entry point activity triggered a process that soon engulfed the whole village and subsequently the village got recognition for something which had never been its priority.

ContextBurakhedi village situated in Samarsinga Panchayat of Bamori block is located at a distance of 25 Kms from the district headquarters at Guna, MP. The village has 22 households and a population of 320. Burakhedi is the first Nirmal Gram of the district and is today a village that is well equipped with all the necessary civic amenities. However, this was not the case some 8 years ago. The situation was drastically different then. Garbage was found everywhere in the village. There were no toilet in the village and villagers used to practice open defecation. The internal roads were full of mud with animal dung dumped by the road side and near the sources of drinking water. The rainy season brought about water logging making it difficult for people to venture out of their houses. The drainage system was literally non-existent. Women had to bear the greatest burden by travelling many miles throughout the day to fetch water. The village was a perfect breeding ground for diseases like diarrhoea, typhoid, malaria and other water borne diseases. The residents of the village were often down with some ailment or the other.

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KVS has been working in the area since the last 16 years on issues of socio-economic development, education and health, focusing on the development of the marginal communities. Its effort in implementing different programmes for rural development helped in making Burakhedi the first Nirmal Gram Panchayat (NGP) in Guna district.

InterventionIn the year 2004, KVS associated itself with WaterAid to implement a programme named Surbhi, aimed at provision of safewater and effective sanitation. It selected a few close by villages and formed a cluster to initiate this work. As the organisation was already working in the villages it prioritised its attention on 10 Gram Panchayats (GP) to initiate the work and Samarsinga was one of them.

The staff members of KVS started interacting with the villagers to seed the idea and mandate of the project. As part of the process, the organisation initiated a baseline survey and thereafter carried out various PRA exercises with the community. This was done to understand the community and also get the community to analyse their own problems through such exercises. When the analysis was presented before the community they could see the interconnectedness among the prevailing issues and that of hygiene, health and drinking water. In order to keep these findings alive, the organisation chose to publicise the information through wall writings and paintings on hygiene messages.

Community sensitization was at its peak as it was the community that participated in the exercises and the discussions to analyse the information. During village meetings, the VWSC was also formed to take the agenda ahead. The villagers elected seven members from the 22 households and also elected from among them a president and a vice president of this committee.The discussions within the committee and team from KVS resulted in defining the mandate for the committee. The committee was responsible for spreading awareness on hygiene and motivating households to initiate the construction of toilets with guidance from the organisation. Follow-up visits to each of the households were repeatedly undertaken. However, much headway could not be made and the committee could not do much.

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By then the organisation realised that they needed to involve women in the process. The organisation had observed that women were staying away from the meetings, though they were interested in the issue. Since the customs of the area prevented interactions between outside men and the village women, the organisation chose to involve its women team to start the process of interaction with the women. The women team members of the organisation started interacting and made home visits to the families in the village. After a few rounds of interaction, a meeting was called and this meeting resulted in the formation of a small group with two women as its leaders. The group was small to begin with but the group members resolved to rope in other women. The group discussed the issue of sanitation in a few meetings and soon realised that all of them faced many problems as they went for open defecation. They resolved to interact within their own families and ask for such facilities within their own homes. This pressure group within the households helped in doing what the other group could not.

This process took about three months. However, with the agriculture season around the corner and this being the sole livelihood of the village residents, the meetings called to carry out the sanitation constructions drew little response. People were busy with the agricultural operations and had no time to listen to or do anything else. The organisation workers who had been interacting with the villagers were often given the cold shoulder but the VWSC members could tackle the situation. They had observed the difficulties being faced by the residents to walk on the roads of the village. The mud and filth made life difficult for one and all. This was the issue that needed attention and hence was taken up as the issue to be discussed in the meeting.

The discussions were intense. The organisation suggested that since this was the issue the villagers faced, this problem should first be resolved. It suggested digging of soak pits adjoining to every house to divert the water from the house into the pits rather than allowing it to freely flow into the streets. This solution could help reduce the filth and the mud. The villagers listened to the suggestions, smiled and said that they would take some action and the meeting ended. However, no action came forth from any one. It was now the turn of the leaders to get into action. The VWSC members took the first initiative and dug soak pits near their houses.The result was obvious and the diversion of the water into the pits soon kept the area surrounding the soak pits clean and dry. This convinced a few more and soon everyone joined in. All of them dug pits near their houses for disposal of the waste water. This activity was the first of the community’s actions to tackle an issue. They tasted success and that gave them encouragement. Contribution also came forth from WaterAid through KVS. Each soak pit had a unit cost of Rs.500, out of which Rs.300 came from WaterAid and the households contributed the rest. The contribution of the households came in kind and through labour in digging the soak pits.

The organisation also provided a support of Rs.1,500 to have a larger sized pit near to the hand pump and also created a washing area near the hand pump. The costs of drain and washing platform came to Rs.3,000. The purpose was to keep the area dry and prevent pollution of the water source. Seeing the organisation’s interest, the community also gathered and dug a trench of about 300 feet to divert any extra water away from the washing area and hand pump. Seeing the determination of the people, the VWSC approached the local administration to make a permanent channel to resolve this problem once and for all. The administration was quick to see the strength of the argument and sanctioned an amount of Rs.1,00,000. The water from all houses now flows into this channel and is taken to a disposal pit away from the village.

Armed with these successes, the village meetings again started discussing the issue of construction of toilets. The time was ripe and one of the villagers, Shri Harikishan, expressed willingness to build a toilet in his own house. He wanted the toilet as his daughter was physically challenged and she was facing difficulties. This opportunity was almost like a boon. The VWSC immediately got into action. It supervised the construction work and within two weeks’ time the toilet was

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ready for use. Thus the first toilet was built in the village. Thereafter another toilet was built as model toilet in the house of another person. The total expense of making these toilets came to Rs.2,500 each, out of which Rs.1,000 was contributed by the organisation, Rs.500 came from NBA grant and the remaining came from the beneficiary.

Once these two toilets were constructed, villagers started discussing about more toilets amongst themselves. They soon realised that having a toilet facility at home would be beneficial for them. The misconceptions that they had were cleared when the users told them about the usefulness of this facility. This increased people’s excitement. Another five villagers showed willingness to build the toilets. In no time thereafter all the houses in the village had toilets.

At around this time a competition was being organised on World Water Day at Bhopal. The competition was on ‘Open Defecation Free Village’. Three villages from the KVS programme area, namely Burakhedi, Baksan and Modaka, participated in this competition along with many other villages from other districts. Burakhedi was awarded the third prize. The other two entries won the 4th and 5th position. The news of the village having won a prize made the villagers excited and they took the pledge to make their village the first Nirmal Gram in the district. There was no looking back and now not just one toilet stands for one household, there are households with more than one toilet. Households have spent money on toilets and on facilities within toilets. They have also constructed bathrooms with glazed tiles and other amenities. Their nomination for Nirmal Gram award was recognised and they were adjudged the first village within the district to be awarded NGP.

Work progressed in other villages under the same programme along similar lines. However, the feat that Burakhedi achieved deserves special mention. The villagers have not just made their village open defecation free, but also made the village smoke free. The women had been complaining of the smoke they had to put with during cooking. On the suggestion of the organisation, the village committee discussed the construction of a biogas plant. Since almost all the families had around 3-4 cattle, the dung could be used for the biogas. They called the Gram Sevak (Village Volunteer) from the agriculture department to attend the village meeting and enlighten the villagers about the biogas plant. The scheme of the department, which provided for a motivational grant of Rs.3,500 was utilised and today all the 22 houses have biogas plants. The village is also smoke free now.

After about 4 years of the intervention, the villagers have continued with the same behaviour. Today the 22 families have 36 toilets. They have RCC roads and also a pipe line for the disposal of waste water. They have also obtained support for construction of a structure from where the cattle of the village drink water. The village today looks clean and dry even during the monsoon months. The habit of cleanliness is now a part and parcel of everyone’s life in Burakhedi.

OutcomeThe work in Burakhedi has acted as an eye opener. What seemed difficult initially later seemed like a cake-walk. The work done has changed the situation in the village beyond anyone’s imagination. Some of the outcomes are:

The initiative of one changed the look of the village: The village people were initially not interested in building toilets and forwarded the excuse that they did not have time for such things as agriculture kept them busy. However, once one from among them took the lead and got one sanitation block constructed, there was no looking back. It was only a matter of time before their misconceptions were dispelled. Once one from among them broke out and constructed a toilet in his own house, people understood how they had been labouring under misconceptions. They marched on and won the first Nirmal village award of the district.

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The work on hygiene has improved the health of the village: Due to the unhygienic condition in which the residents of Burakhedi lived, drinking water was polluted and the villagers suffered from various diseases like typhoid, malaria, diarrhoea and other water borne diseases. Almost 70-80%, of the population suffered every year from one or more of these diseases. The scenario has changed now. The hygienic conditions in the village have reduced the incidence of morbidity to about 20%. Good health now prevails.

Village residents prefer to return home quickly from their relatives’ place if there is no toilet facility there: Some villagers, in a lighter note, have stated that they prefer to return home if their relatives, to whom they have gone for a visit, do not have toilet facilities. They go to their houses during the day and come back by night. The habit of not going for open defecation seems to have got into their systems.

Toilet is an important part of the infrastructure today for all households: Even after the withdrawal of the organisation, many households have built separate toilets for men and women members in their own families. They believe that when the elder male members of the family go for toilet the women should not use it. The 22 families have about 36 toilets in the village. They have also added other facilities like tap connections inside the toilets. Many have also got bathrooms with water connections and some families have spent lavishly on toilets.

The tears have gone: Women do not shed tears any more as they now cook on biogas stoves. All the 22 houses have built biogas plants and have made their village smoke free. The village committee was instrumental in seeking the support of the administration and those who got these biogas plants constructed were given a support of Rs.3,500. The women are a happier lot now.

LearningsThe intervention by the Kalptaru team in this small village provided the team some very specific learnings. These are important for any development intervention and are to be understood before and during the intervention itself. These were:

A small spark can kindle a fire: We have seen that a spark can spread like a fire. As the village got the third rank in the competition at Bhopal, they decided to be the first Nirmal Gram in the

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district. This resolve was soon translated to reality. It is thus important for the agency to keep the motivation levels high and recognise small efforts so made. Who knows, people can get motivated and take actions which are beyond one’s expectations. In the case of this village this is what happened.

People start accepting an idea when they experience for themselves a benefit even though the benefit may be small: It is not always true that people only get motivated by listening to an idea or seeing the idea in action at some other place. Often building upon the relationship aspect is important. The garbage clearing effort initiated by the organisation with support from the village was the clincher. When this activity was done it helped to build faith and thereafter the level of cooperation from the households increased and this made the village free from open defecation.

One should take support from the government department and work within their norms if required: Seeking resources from the state and working within their prescribed norms is a must. However, these agencies provide minimum resources. Supplementing the given resources by something more is what the agency should aim at. This is what KVS did. It took the resources from the agriculture department to install the biogas. They also obtained resources from the NBA for the toilets. However, it also added its own share and got the individual households to chip in with their share as well. The tripartite effort made the difference. Some details of the resources so obtained can be seen (Table 1).

Table 1: Resources for Biogas and Sanitation

Sr. No.

Name of the intervention

No. Total fund (in Rs.)

Support from government (in Rs.)

Support from WaterAid (in Rs.)

Support from beneficiaries (in Rs.)

1 Soakpit ( built at beneficiary’s house)

22 500 0 300 200

2 Soak pit built on Hand pump

1 1,500 0 1,500 0

3 Washing platform 1 3,000 0 3,000 0

4 Toilets 22 500 300 -

5 Model toilet 500 1,000 -

6 Drainage up to water canal

300 12,000 1,00,000 12,000 1,000

7 Biogas - - 3,500 - -

8 Nadep 5 3,000 1,000 1,500 -

9 Roof water harvesting

5 15,000 0 500 1,000

ConclusionThis case is an example of how partnership models can work for the development of the community. It started with some investment in social capital and thus laid the platform for initiatives to build upon. The next player that completed the picture was the government with its schemes and subsidies. But the journey is never smooth without the complete involvement of the implementing agency, which has to provide solutions and contingency plans from time to time. This case has shown that the sense of competition also propels the vehicle of development and dignity of the people.It only pays when this competition is duly recognised and felicitated.

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Biography of Authors

A1. mit Sen working with VASUDHA VIKAS DHAR for about 8 years associated as Project Coordinator.

Ahamad Tokeer working with CARMDAKSH for almost two years and has been associated as 2. Program Coordinator.

Bharat Singh Mandavi working with LSS since last 8 years and is working as Block 3. Coordinator.

Charusheela Morya working with Bhartiya Grameen Mahila Sangh, Indore (MP) as Advocacy 4. officer.

Deepak Patel working as Project Coordinator at Dharti Gramotthan EvamSahbhagi Gramin 5. Vikas Samiti since last nine years.

Deepak Yadav working with Parhit Samaj Sevisanstha, Datia as Cluster Coordinator. 6.

Jitendra Parmar working as Urban Governance specialist with AARAMBH since last 4 years. 7.

Mohsin Ali working with Dharti Gramotthan Evam Sahbhagi Gramin Vikas Samiti as Advocacy 8. Coordinator.

Narad Muni Tebhulkar working with the LSS-Durg since four years and holds the position of 9. Block Coordinator.

Omprakash Patidar works with VASUDHA VIKAS DHAR as Project Coordinator for 2 years. 10.

Ranu Katiyar working with Samarthan as cluster coordinator since one year. 11.

Ramkumar Patel working with LSS Raigarh as field coordinator. He is working with LSS-Raigarh 12. since 1989.

Reeta Lahiri working with Bhartiya Grameen Mahila Sangh, Indore (MP) for the last 12 years 13. associated as project coordinator.

Ms. Santoshi Tiwari working as Project Coordinator with Samarthan since the last 12 years.14.

Sunil Kujur working as State Facilitator, with LSS-Durg since last one year. 15.

Sujata Tirkey working with AARAMBH for 3 years has been associated as Advocacy and 16. Documentation officer.

Vijay Singh working with Parhit Samaj Sevi Sanstha, Datia for 10 years has been associated as 17. Programme Manager.

Vineet Saraswat working with KVS at Guna and involved with coordinating the projects around 18. drinking water since last three years.

Facilitating Team

Nabarun Sen Gupta provided the guidance to the case writer and facilitated the write shop 1. held at Bhopal

Dr. Braja Sundar Mishra worked as co facilitator during the write-shop.2.

Radha Thakur worked as co-facilitator during the write-shop. 3.

Support Team

Sibaji Bose carried out editing of the cases and gave the right language expressions to the 1. cases.

Shreekanth Sree, provided support through his imaginative creation depicting the 2. interventions through sketches.

©Jal Seva Charitable Foundation, January 2014

Author and editor:

Nabarun Sen Gupta

Cover Photo:

WaterAid, Bhopal

Acknowledgements:

Support from Mr. Sreekanth for his imaginative creation and depicting the interventions through sketches and Mr. Sibaji Bose for language editing is greatly acknowledged. Feedback from Indira Khurana*, Mathew Luckose (WaterAid) and Jasmine Ahirwar (WaterAid) helped for strengthening the document is greatly appreciated.

Design and Production:

Impress, 1805 Second Floor, Street No- 9, Govindpuri Extension, New Delhi 110 019

Published by:

Jal Seva Charitable Foundation

403, 4th Floor, CNI Bhavan,

16, Pandit Pant Marg,

New Delhi- 110 001

India

Supported by

* Formerly in WaterAid

Supported by

Jal Seva Charitable Foundation403, 4th Floor, CNI Bhavan,16, Pandit Pant Marg,New Delhi- 110 001, IndiaPh: 011-46084400, Fax: 011-46084411

Case writeshop: A method to capture tacit knowledge from practitioners

The writeshop methodology has captured the stories of the work done by practitioners from different organizations. The knowledge on what works and under what condition and with what combinations of strategies is an important element that any practitioner would be interested to know and learn from. The capturing of this ‘tacit’ knowledge (knowledge that is presently available with the practitio-ners) and converting them to ‘instrumental’ knowledge is what this compilation aimed at. The author is sure that the output will certainly help promote better practices of those involved with similar interventions elsewhere.

A compendium of best practices from Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh

“The Struggles and Successes” People's voices on WASH

Best Practices