Women and their unvoiced sanitation needs. Image for representation purposes only. (Women in Deogarh morning, Orissa, India. Image Source: Simon Williams / Ekta Parishad)
Urban Sanitation

Community led sanitation transforms women's lives

News this fortnight

Author : Aarti Kelkar Khambete

Community led sanitation empowers women and girls in a Delhi locality

A quiet sanitation revolution has taken place in the bustling neighbourhood of Shahbad Dairy in northwest Delhi, improving the health and dignity of women and girls. People in the locality came together to renovate public toilets to address the long-standing sanitation issues of the area thus demonstrating the power of collective action in creating lasting change.

The homes in the the area being small and rented, there is no space for toilets and people were forced to use community toilets, which were often unhygienic and unsafe. Women and girls bore the brunt of these poor conditions, and many households would deprive their daughters of food and water at night to avoid trips to the toilets after dark. This lack of access to toilets led to a number of health problems among women and girls.

This is when residents of Shahbad Dairy, Haidarpur and Jahangirpuri — a community of over 200,000 people, decided to bring about a change in the situation and along with women’s groups and grassroots non-governmental organisation's like Saksham and CRY-India (Child Rights and You), they took their concerns to local authorities.

Women-led groups played a crucial role in identifying the local sanitation issues and detailed demand letters were drafted and detailed discussions with the relevant authorities were held. State and local representatives, including the local member of legislative assembly, ward councilor, the chief minister's office, and the Delhi Commission for Women and even the media were approached. After years of advocacy, their efforts were successful and renovations of community toilets began in 2023.

Female caretakers were employed, which not only helped in improving the hygiene of the toilets, but also created livelihood opportunities for women. Currently, five female caretakers ensure that Shahbad Dairy’s community toilets are well-maintained and safe. The toilets now are cleaner, more functional, and have fostered a sense of ownership among the residents (Down To Earth).

Water hyacinth helps create employment opportunities for women

Water hyacinth is an aggressive weed that negatively affects the ecology of freshwater ecosystems. It flourishes when pollutants in rivers and other freshwater systems are loaded with nutrients, and grows aggressively weaving a dense net of roots that stagnate the flowing waters, suffocate aquatic life and stifle the delicate underwater ecosystem, disrupting irrigation systems and impacting fishing and farming communities negatively.

However. it is now increasingly being viewed as a tool of empowerment and is providing employment opportunities for women in several states including Assam, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand.

The weed is uprooted and dried, converted into pulp and pressed into sheets of eco-friendly paper by local women workers in a factory in Assam. Making paper from water hyacinth requires ten times less water than the conventional ways. In the southern state of Tamil Nadu too, a factory works with water hyacinth for producing home and lifestyle products. This has transformed women's lives and empowered them by opening up a route to financial stability, safety, and dignity.

The methods for using water hyacinth are environment friendly, sustainable and the raw material is easily available. The removal of hyacinth from the water also helps in cleaning up of the water bodies. The conversion of the weed into a range of lifestyle products and paper have also helped in steady income generation for women, supporting their livelihoods (Mongabay, India).

Technology helps connect agricultural buyers and sellers

Science and technology have come together to aid agricultural rural markets in India. An online initiative, marketmirchi.com, has enabled more than 30,000 entrepreneurs, FPOs and self-help groups across India to successfully buy and sell artisanal and agricultural products using their computers or mobile phones.

This is as a part of the Rural Technology Action Group (RuTAG) initiative by the office of the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India since 2004, which was conceptualised to provide science and technology intervention to support rural areas.

The website operates like an app and the website serves as an is an open buyer-seller hub where the two parties can forge an association without any kind of hurdles. The portal has been designed with ease of access and use for those lacking education.

Users have to log in using a username and password, and the platform offers instructions and communication in 10 regional languages. The direct interaction eliminates the need for middleman, and connects rural entrepreneurs, farmers and other stakeholders who are dependent on local markets for buying and selling their produce by providing a free digital platform for direct marketing. This does away with the disproportionate profits that middlemen tend to make.

Marketmirchi.com has a pan-India presence, there is no entry or exit fee for its users, which includes rural entrepreneurs, farmer producer organisations, self-help groups, farmers and artisans from all over the country (Village Square).

A healer revives biodiversity in Koraput district of Odisha

Pangi, a healer from Odisha, is also an environmentalist focused on enhancing the quality of life for the tribal communities while reviving the biodiversity in Koraput region of Odisha. Pangi has founded the Sri Gupteshwar Herbal Medicine and Traditional Technology Research Institute in 2000 with nine other healers. He has 450 types of herbal preparations sourced from Iswaramali, Deomali and Hatimali, part of the Mali hill range in the Eastern Ghats.

Pangi is also passionate about reviving Koraput’s dwindling biodiversity through the planting of 100,000 trees that have transformed the landscape and the lives of local communities. He is also focusing on restoring the region’s native medicinal plants, which have been threatened by modernisation and deforestation.

Pangi's team distributes a mixture that combines cow dung, cow urine and soil to create nutrient-rich seed balls across the hills and forests of Deomali, to encourage tree growth during the monsoons. He is also making efforts to restore ancient medicinal plants such as Vishalyakarani, Gangashiuli and Ashoka, which are vital to the region’s tribal communities (Village Square).

Emissions from plastic pollution highest in India: Study

A recent study published in the journal Nature, has found that India contributes to nearly one-fifth of global plastic emissions, the highest among all countries globally. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Leeds, has created a global inventory of macroplastic pollution and has found ‘uncollected plastic waste’ and ‘uncontrolled burning’ as the biggest causes of plastic pollution emissions. India tops the list, producing nearly 9.3 million tonnes (MT) of macroplastic waste emissions every year, followed by Nigeria (3.5 MT), Indonesia (3.4 MT), and China (2.8 MT).

This study defines macroplastic (plastic particles > 5 mm) emission as “material that has moved from the managed or mismanaged systems in which waste is subject to a form of control, however basic (contained state) to the unmanaged system or the environment (uncontained state) with no control.” It classifies emissions into debris, which is physical particles bigger than 5 mm, and open uncontrolled burning.

The study argues that India has been overestimating its waste collection coverage and underestimating its official waste generation rate and official statistics often do not include rural areas, open burning of uncollected waste or informally recycled waste (Mongabay, India).

This is a roundup of important news updates from October 16 to October 31, 2024. Read our policy updates here.

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