NGOs Making a Difference in Rural Sanitation
The 2011 Census revealed that about 53 percent of the households throughout the country are devoid of the basic sanitation facilities. Since then, the figure has gone up higher, especially in the rural areas. A recent report from UNICEF justifies the scenario that about 638 million people defecate openly in our country.
Local Level Intervention
But the positive side of the story is that there are many non-profit organisations working in this area that are involved in building cost-effective toilets for the population of India. Some of them also help in raising awareness and offering demonstrations on low-cost toilets. An NGO for rural sanitation in Noida or any other NCR region basically aim at constructing toilets for slum schools that cover government primary educational institutions to offer a hygienic and functional environment.
Considerable Improvements
Not only this, they construct modify or repair the water supplies, septic tanks, urinals, connections and water stations too. The move to provide hygiene education and basic toilet facilities at MCD schools is to educate the communities regarding the prevention of diseases like diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery etc.
Small Steps Count
Go to any NGO for rural sanitation in Ghaziabad or other parts of the national capital region and you will find them dedicatedly working to teach people about maintaining personal hygiene and sanitary conditions in toilets. Even taking small steps towards observing hygiene, such as washing hands and learning to flush does a lot in preventing illnesses from occurring.
Modern Approaches
The national and international non-government organisations are working together on WASH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene) to bring about a change. They train local partners thoroughly in the modern approaches to mobilise communities. There is a facilitator who works upon awareness creation, capacity building, designing and supervision of the development-related activities in this sector.
Initiatives Undertaken
Though, it is also a fact that many people stick to the age old traditions as they have lesser understanding on the sanitation and hygiene practices and ways to improve upon them to stay in better health. Initiatives like introducing the setting up of benchmark standards, new technologies as well as capacity building for NGOs are lending a helping hand to the implementation of government programmes.
Participatory Trainings
Training sessions are conducted for the local interventionists to fill-in the knowledge gaps and to address the technical issues. The aim of such participatory trainings is to encourage better communication at the village level and to solve water and sanitation related issues as well as to know about the present status of a rural area in terms of water and sanitation.
Such training programmes are organised to inculcate the skills to analyse problems, to create awareness amongst the communities in using low-cost solutions to clean water, such as chlorination, filtration etc.
