UN Report Hails Sulabh by Our Staff Reporter
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THE HINDU, Monday, July 14, 2003 UN report hails Sulabh By our staff reporter New Delhi, July 13, the recently released a delegation from Afghanistan came to the Human Development Report, 2003, of the Capital to have deliberation with Sulabh's United nations Development Programme has officials here so that they could establish 500 praised the world of Sulabh International – a similar community toilets in Kabul. The NGO non government Organisation – for what it has agreed to help the Kabul administration in asserts as the pioneering work in not only its endeavor. This week, a South African team disposing human waste in a socially had come to the Capital to seek technical acceptable way, but also in an affordable support of Sulabh to streamline the sanitation manner. system in their country. The NGO, which runs more than 5,500 The report said since 1970, when it was community toilets in the country including established, Sulabh has constructed more over a hundred in Delhi, has been applauded than 10 lakh such units in the country. On the for its approach in dealing with human waste. 5,500 community toilet complexes being run The Human Development Report in its fourth by it, the report said, these included facilities chapter on “Public Policies to Improve People's for bathing and doing laundry and offer free Health Education” has given a separate box on services to children and disabled people. As a Sulabh's achievement, probably the only result, more than one crore people have Indian NGO which has been acknowledged by received improved “and low-cost sanitation UNDP in the report. and has created as many as 50,000 jobs,” it said. It's approach is based on partnership with local government, backed by community Appreciating the Sulabh's door-to-door participation and has substantially improved campaign to provide free health education to environmental quality in rural and urban slums lakhs of people, the report said the NGO also by poor people, it said. trains local people to construct more latrines themselves and has helped set up and Referring to the large-scale open defecation maintain fee based community toilets in the here, the Human Development Report said slums and other areas. Sulabh's solution was a low-cost, pour-flush water-seal toilet with leach pits for the on-site The Human Development Report, 2003, disposal of human waste. observed that there was a pressing need to provide technologies that people want to “The technology too is affordable as the design use. The best way to do so is through of toilet complexes suits various income products, which match consumers demand in levels,” it said. Unlike the modern toilets which both price and quality like the one offered by use 10 litres of water for flushing, the Sulabh's Sulabh, it said. toilet require only two litres,” the report said. 000 It was probably for these reasons that recently 200 Valmiki's children script a small epic of their own at this school Outlook August 26, 2002 AFTER you wriggle your way through some of their parents saw but could never fulfil. They west Delhi's notoriously clogged dirt-roads on realise that society may have given them the a rainy morning, past the "Radhey Krishna Fast more politically correct name of "Valmikis", Food" centres, past the never-ending squatter but it does nothing or little at all to bring them settlements, the ferns sprouting from a toilet into the mainstream. This is the vacuum the bowl atop a beautifully-crafted iron gate come school fills—by giving them empowerment at the grassroots, or what social scientists call vertical mobility. Founded in 1992 by Padma Bhushan Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, founder of the Sulabh International Social Service organisation, this is India's "first quality school for the children of Valmikis". "Smile, You're in Sulabh", is the driving force behind every day spent in the school for the last 10 years. The CBSE- recognised school currently has classes till Standard 9, and every year a new class is as a surprise. The business of bathrooms is added. Everything, from textbooks, uniforms taken seriously at the Sulabh International to transport, is free for the children, most of Museum of Toilets, we are told. But this place whom are first-generation learners. isn't about intricately-carved and painted Says Mrs Sheel Prasad, principal of the school, urinals or commodes, nor the bowls' role in "These children have grown up in front of me, history—''Toilets were the places where many and we take pride in their achievements. Their conspiracies were hatched...Edward II was parents know the value of what we are giving locked in his loo," says a message inside one to their children because they themselves toilet. On these premises, the dreams of never went to any school." An air force around 350 children, now busy mugging up officer's wife, Prasad says initially the school their Maths and English lessons from dog- was just like any other teaching assignment. eared textbooks, are taking shape. "But now it has grown on me. I remember the Cliches ring so true for the Sulabh Public time when these kids used to sit on my lap. school. Indeed, it is a school with a Today they have grown so tall that at times I difference— 60 per cent of the children here have to ask them to bend before I pull their come from scavenger families. They know that ears. There is a sense of personal satisfaction, beyond the "A for Apple and B for Boy" lessons, which I don't think any other school or a post the four walls of the school hold the promise of would have given me." multiplying their aspirations, dreams which 201 India Today August 19, 2002 SULABH SHAUCHALAYA Her pride is not without reason. Already, the their children from mingling or interacting with difference the school has made on these young children of another caste. For them, getting Toilet Training lives is perceptible. Kavita, a class VII student, their child educated in an environment where wants to emulate Magsaysay award-winner they don't have to face the same taunts or Kiran Bedi once she passes out of the school. jeers they face in the society is more Rajbir, another 12-year-old, dreams of making important. And this school treats everyone it into the Indian cricket team one day, and in alike." MBARRASSINGLY for a country whose the water used by cisterns to flush, doing away between classes, is busy honing his batting satellites ride homemade rockets into with the vastly ineffective septic tank system, The school was recognised by the Directorate skills. Interestingly, the school does not space, public sanitation is still largely a the degrading use of human scavengers to of Education, Delhi government, last year, and E differentiate between the Valmiki children and disaster story: only 1 per cent of the rural clean excreta, and reducing the incidence of if all goes well, the first batch of class X others in the classroom. Says Prof S. Tripathi, population has access to sanitary facilities: in disease. students will pass out next year. Prasad is honorary chairman of the Sulabh International urban areas it's 20 per cent. A significant move already impatient. Says she: "We have The Delhi-based organisation claims to have Centre for Action Sociology: 'This school is to redress the situation has been made by nurtured these children with care. We just play set up 7.5 lakh units in India, earning a about breaking down the rigid caste and Sulabh International, an organisation that the catalysts' role." For more information, commission for each toilet system cultural barriers of our society. There is never began working for an appropriate technology sold—bought directly by communities or any question of differentiating between The school treats everyone alike. And no solution in Bihar, in 1970. A low-cost, eco- supported by government initiatives. It students. It is about internalising the values parent has ever discouraged their friendly alternative for rural areas, small towns currently maintains 5,000 pay-per-use public the child brings with him and mixing them with children from mingling with those from and slums in large urban areas, the steep, toilet and bath complexes in India, mainly in others for a larger whole." But do the cultural another caste. sloping toilet bowl of the Sulabh Shauehalaya towns and cities. VS. Naipaul. Who once wrote and caste differences weigh on the mind of (Sulabh latrine) and its compost latrines cost Contact: Sulabh Public School, RZ-83, that India defecates in the open, would be upper-caste parents? No, claims Prasad: about Rs 2,000 to construct. It uses a fifth of Sulabh Bhawan, Mahavir Enclave, pleased. "Never in the last 10 years have I faced a Palam-Dabri Road, New Delhi-110045; situation where parents have discouraged Phone: 011-5032753. 000 202 203 India Today August 19, 2002 SULABH SHAUCHALAYA Her pride is not without reason. Already, the their children from mingling or interacting with difference the school has made on these young children of another caste. For them, getting Toilet Training lives is perceptible. Kavita, a class VII student, their child educated in an environment where wants to emulate Magsaysay award-winner they don't have to face the same taunts or Kiran Bedi once she passes out of the school. jeers they face in the society is more Rajbir, another 12-year-old, dreams of making important. And this school treats everyone it into the Indian cricket team one day, and in alike." MBARRASSINGLY for a country whose the water used by cisterns to flush, doing away between classes, is busy honing his batting satellites ride homemade rockets into with the vastly ineffective septic tank system, The school was recognised by the Directorate skills.