Sanitation and Hygiene

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December 13, 2022 WaterAid India’s partnership with USAID and Gap Inc. benefits 2400 villages across 7 districts of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra

WaterAid has focused on establishing community-led water quality monitoring & surveillance (Image: Anil Gulati/India Water Portal Flickr)
October 15, 2022 Synthesis of water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) spatial pattern in rural India: an integrated interpretation of WaSH practices
People in rural areas lack potable water, and use unsafe sanitation and hygiene facilities (Image: Sebastian Dahl)
December 2, 2021 Public toilets and choice of work for women
Separation between women and men’s toilets (Image: Rajesh Pamnani; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
October 15, 2021 Interventions to promote hand hygiene should be designed based on an understanding of what people care about, says report on ‘State of the world’s hand hygiene’
Girls learn the value of hand-washing (Image: Kristen Kelleher, USAID, Pixnio)
October 4, 2021 Lessons from the Swachh Bharat Mission experience
Pop culture icons like Gabbar Singh are painted on the walls of a toilet complex in New Delhi (Image: Project Raahat, Enactus)
July 6, 2021 If trends persist, billions will be left without critical, life-saving WASH services, says a SDG monitoring report

Between 2016 and 2020, the global population with safely managed drinking water at home increased from 70% to 74% (Image: Pxhere)
The women sanitation champions of Angul
Residents confronted with poor sanitation conditions come together and organise for effective sanitation service delivery in crowded, low-income neighbourhoods in Angul, Odisha. Posted on 28 Sep, 2020 03:56 PM

Sita Behera, the 35-year-old mother of two lives in the Radhamadhavapura unauthorised slum in Angul. She is the President of the Ward Sanitation Committee (WSC) that is leading the work on making the slum open defecation free. Driven by the desire to improve the living conditions for her children and the neighbourhood at large, she prompted 140 families to construct latrines over two years.

Women come together in multi-layered sanitation institutions in Angul set up under Project Nirmal to improve the sanitation chain. (Image: SCI-FI, CPR)
Gendered impacts of COVID-19
The pandemic affects rural women disproportionately with damaging impacts on their employment, health and security. Posted on 20 Sep, 2020 09:15 PM

COVID-19 has unleashed one of the greatest human tragedies of the contemporary era demonstrating our fragility and has laid bare severe and systemic inequalities at all levels. It provides several lessons in the conduct of all aspects of human personality, professional, societal, and institutional lives globally.

The time-use survey indicates that women are now spending more time on unpaid domestic and care work (Image: Sunita, Pixabay)
Improving city-wide sanitation service delivery in small towns of Odisha
Project Nirmal demonstrates appropriate, low-cost, decentralized, inclusive and sustainable sanitation service delivery solutions for two small towns (Angul and Dhenkanal) in Odisha. Posted on 16 Sep, 2020 06:32 PM

Tucked away in the slums of Dhenkanal, a small community offers a glimpse of how sanitation solutions have changed hundreds of lives for the better. Till recently, post rains in the absence of proper drainage, the clogged lanes were causing a lot of inconvenience to the residents of Parhatiya Sahi slum.

Community meetings in the slums of Dhenkanal under Project Nirmal (Image: SCI-FI, CPR)
Sanitation empowered her
Community response to the slum sanitation improvement project hinges on grassroots leadership in a slum settlement in Dhenkanal. Posted on 14 Sep, 2020 03:58 PM

In a corner of the Kathagada locality in the Parhatiya Sahi slum of Dhenkanal stands a small neat house. Surrounded by a well-tended garden that is planted with fruit trees, flowers and grass, this is Reena Rani Singh’s home. She is a multi-purpose local leader and is a member of the local Self Help Group (SHG), Mahila Arogya Samiti and Slum Sanitation Committee (SSC).

As a part of Project Nirmal, community structures including Slum Sanitation Committees (SSCs) and Ward Sanitation Committees (WSCs) were constituted at the slum and ward level (Image: SCI-FI, CPR)
Swachh Survekshan 2020: Indore tops in cleanest city category
News this week Posted on 25 Aug, 2020 09:19 PM

Indore once again tops the Swachh Survekshan 2020 in the cleanest city category

Clean road near Pardesipura, Indore. (Source: India Water Portal)
Next phase of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban to focus on water treatment
Policy matters this week Posted on 25 Aug, 2020 08:26 PM

Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban: Next phase to focus on water treatment and toilet waste disposal

Next phase of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban to focus on water treatment (Image source: India Water Portal)
Call for Papers for the wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water
The Journal of Gender and Water at the University of Pennsylvania is accepting papers for the upcoming 8th volume.
Posted on 25 Aug, 2020 06:10 PM

The wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water invites articles for publication in its 8th volume (March 2021). The deadline for submission is October 15, 2020. The authors to write research, review and case studies including but not limited to the following topics:

Decentralised governance key to handling Covid-19
There is a positive correlation between the panchayat raj system and effective handling of Covid-19, says Mani Shankar Aiyar. Posted on 22 Aug, 2020 07:38 PM

Panchayats have been the core of India's rural governance even before they received the constitutional mandate through the 73rd constitutional amendment in 1992, forming the basis of decentralization in the country. There are 2.5 lakh gram panchayats; over 6 lakhs villages; around 4500 urban local bodies and 4000 census towns in the country.

A first time Sarpanch of Lahora Gram Panchayat in Rajasthan’s Tonk District, stands committed, guiding the community with her political acumen. (Image: UN Women;CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Think, before you have your cup of tea!
Women workers from tea plantations in India are overworked and underpaid. Voiceless, without any rights at the workplace, and their health compromised, they continue to suffer in silence. Posted on 19 Aug, 2020 06:58 PM

India is the second largest tea producer in the world, with production at 1.2 million metric tons

Women workers at a tea plantation in Assam (Image Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Locals struggle with WASH issues post-Amphan
Cyclone Amphan wreaks havoc in the Sunderbans at a time when the country was already battling a large spread of Covid-19. Posted on 17 Aug, 2020 12:17 PM

UN’s recognition of safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right recently hit a decade and this makes us ponder even more about the situation in the Sundarbans after the Amphan cyclone. The destruction caused by Amphan in the Sundarbans poses a massive threat to the very right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation of the people living there.

Having no source of water is proving to be extremely difficult for the people living in the Sundarbans. (Image: WaterAid, Subhrajit Sen)
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