As usual we were divided into various groups and sent to schools to educate the students about sanitation and hygiene,which included talking about open defection, hand washing and menstrual hygiene management. This time I only went as an observer but ended up becoming a translator, which was a good thing because I got to know about the problems the children faced in that school.
We went to a school where there were around 30 students, but one of the teachers asked one of them to go around the village and gather more children. So all in all there was around 50 children. The Wash United team started off by giving an introduction about the Nirmal Bharat Yatra and proceeded to explain open defecation and why it’s not good to defecate in the open. They came up with five reasons why a person shouldn’t defecate in the open: it's unsafe, not respectable or dignified, unhealthy and harmful to the environment, which in turn affects the development of the country. They explained all this with a game. The game involved two toilet cups, a bat and a poop ball (also called goo ball). So basically the children were asked questions about the problems open defecation causes and those who answered them correctly qualified to play the game.
Poop ball game
The second game they played was with a ball covered with glitter and vaseline which was passed around between the students. In the end about 4 to 5 of them were chosen and whoever had glitter on their hands were asked to wash their hands. Two of them were asked to wash their hands with soap and the other two without. At the end, the ones who washed their hands with soap was clean and the hands of the other two were dirty. This was done to teach the students the importance of hand washing. After that they were taught the 18 steps of hand washing, which most of them got confused doing, but they did eventually learn it. Then a tippy-tap was made for them to practice on. After that they were given certificates by the Wash United team for completing the workshop.
What I personally didn't like was that the teachers were not letting the Wash United team speak. They kept prompting the answers. Also if a student failed to answer, they would scold them and say, "Didn’t we teach you this yesterday?" Before going to schools, a teacher training is conducted wherein the teachers are briefed about hand washing, menstrual hygiene management and also open defecation. So they try and teach the students all that they have learnt in one day, which is impossible for a child of that age to remember.
What actually caught my attention, were that the toilets were in really bad condition. Unfortunately the battery died on my phone so I couldn’t take pictures. But there were 5 toilets where only one had an Indian style toilet covered in shit, and the other four had small holes to pass urine. It was badly kept. One of the students was passing by so I asked him if he used the toilet and he replied saying, "No." Then I asked him why he didn't use it; he was a little shy and just smiled. I then asked him if it was because of the condition it was in and then he nodded his head. So the next obvious question was,"What do you do when you have to go?" He said he would run home. I then asked if it was the same with his other classmates and he replied with a nod. I asked him that now that he had understood the importance of a toilet, would he ask his principal for one? He shyly smiled and said yes.
Jina and Nicola, the videographers from the Wash United team wanted to know the principal's take on this and so I got to talk to the principal. I started out by asking her why the toilets were in such bad condition. She first denied it by saying, "It's always clean." To that I replied saying, "I just saw it and it didn't look clean from any angle." She then tried giving me an excuse by saying, "The manual scavenger man had not come for days, so that's why it looked unclean." This got me a little agitated and I ended up saying,"Because of the toilets being unclean, many of the students have to run home as they find it difficult to use the school toilets." She coolly replied saying, "They just need a reason to go home." She was not willing to accept the fact that the toilets they had were really filthy. I added by saying,"We have come here and informed you about the need for proper toilets and you still think that it’s not important?" Then she quickly replied saying, “Yes, you are right. I will definitely do something about it.” I informed her that to construct a toilet would be less than Rs.700 and would be an investment. She promised saying that next time we were here, the toilets would be spotless. I had my doubts but I smiled with hope.
By Aneesha Menon, Fellow , India Water Portal , Arghyam
For full coverage of the Nirmal Bharat Yatra by India Water Portal, click here.