For many of us, toilets are ordinary, everyday items that we take for granted. Can you imagine yourself without a restroom? No, right?
Wanted to share this inspiring project VT Seva has taken up to solve sanitation problem for an entire village, Yes, we built a total of 52 toilets.
How is poverty fought? Well, there are many different approaches that are currently being tried and some may seem more self-explanatory than others. For example, there are micro-lending, education aid, anti-corruption efforts, and attempts to create jobs and industry. But what about sanitation? Specifically, what about the toilets? Toilets, and the access to toilets and established sanitation standards, are actually a very, very important issue in much of the developing world. Toilet use is essential to the survival and development of all children in India and around the world, as exposure to human waste causes diseases such as diarrhea. More than reducing levels of infection and disease, however, the sanitary importance of toilets offers an increased sense of dignity. The availability of toilets is even shown to increase the school attendance of teenage girls, who may not go to school during their menstrual cycle.
Although VT Seva has previously taken many projects in the areas of education, health, environmental sustainability, disaster recovery.etc, but when this opportunity showed up, it was a no brainer to take it up. Kulathupudur (Pollachi Taluk) is a small village near Coimbatore where the downtrodden have absolutely no toilets, they would have to use open fields to relieve themselves and for that they would have to either get up early in the morning or late in the nights for this purpose. This created another issue of dealing with snakes and insects in the fields during those odd times in dark and not to mention about all the infections and diseases that spread due to this. Hearing about this opportunity, we had do a lot of background work to evaluate what it takes to plan and execute this project.
VT Seva Coimbatore branch lead Ms.Shyamala evaluated the conditions on ground, consulted with the authorities and also corresponding engineer to come up with plans and estimates for solving this sanitation issue. This project was then proposed to VT Seva donors and as always they stepped up to support this initiative. VT Seva's generous donors and specially Mr.Sreenivasan Kanagasubramaniam from Seattle have stepped up to fund this project of building of 52 toilets with complete water facility. The village is now fully endowed with toilets and the villagers expressed their gratitude to everyone who supported this project. What next? Having seen the success of what we can do to solve basic humanitarian issues like sanitation and water, few more projects are being considered in the similar lines. We urge you to stay connected and continue being part of these initiatives that addresses basic needs and increases human dignity.
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