Community Sanitation Facility in Supaul, Bihar, India
Impact Projects

Community Sanitation Facility in Supaul, Bihar, India

World Centric + Sanitation and Health Rights in India

$30,000.00 from profits from fiscal year 2017

Over 600 million people in India defecate in the open and over 100 million people lack access to safe drinking water. This causes 12 million new cases of illness each year, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and has detrimental effects on India’s economy and society.

Sanitation and Health Rights in India (SHRI) constructs community toilet blocks in rural villages in India that are free to use. Waste is collected in a large underground tank constructed on-site, where it decomposes to produce methane gas, an energy source used to power an on-site water filtration plant. SHRI currently operates five of these facilities in the states of Bihar and Jharkhand, which have decreased open defecation by 80% in these communities by serving nearly 6,000 toilet users and water customers daily.

This is the second sanitation facility that we have funded through SHRI.


The Impact

Construction of 1 Community Sanitation Facility in a community that currently has no access to toilets or potable water:

  • 16 toilets; 8 toilets for women and 8 toilets for men
  • Plumbing
  • Handwashing stations
  • Biogas digester
  • Rainwater catchment system

Indirect Impacts:

  • Increase in health due to access to sanitation and clean water
  • Increase in participation in school and work due to health increase

The Approach

SHRI will build 8 toilets for men and 8 toilets for women with safe entrances. The construction will include a rain catchment and filtration system on the roof and a biogas tank. Sale of the water will be used to offset the cost of maintenance and operations.

  1. Identify location. SHRI will work with its local government and community contacts in Bihar’s Supaul district to identify a community where the households lack access to toilets (thus defecate in the open) and potable water.
  2. Obtain land from government. SHRI builds its facilities on land that is obtained by petitioning the government. This saves money and gets the local government involved in the process.
  3. Organize community meetings. This gives SHRI the opportunity to facilitate an understanding of the work the organization does and the services it provides.
  4. Hire local construction team and construction managers.
  5. Procure materials & begin construction
  6. Water quality test. The filtration plants are designed to treat the water at each location. This is why a raw water test is necessary.
  7. Hire and train local staff to operate and manage facility and water filtration plant. This ensures that the facility staff are prepared to collect daily toilet user data, make sure that the facility is kept clean and maintained every day to ensure consistent use, and to maintain and operate the water filtration plant to sell safe drinking water to the community. Water sales is how SHRI generates revenue to pay for the O&M of its facilities.
  8. Launch Facility.
  9. Monitoring and Evaluation. This ensure that our facilities are being maintained and sustained by local staff, and helps ensure that the community is using our services.


About SHRI

A World Centric partner since 2017.

SHRI fights alongside communities to end open defecation as a key step in an ongoing struggle for health equity and social and economic justice.

Updates

January 2019

This facility is now complete and in operation. On January 16th, SHRI held an opening ceremony for the community. The photos below show local leaders doing a prayer over the opening of the facility and the water storage tank on the roof.



October 2018

This facility is now 60% complete. SHRI anticipates that it will be fully operational before the end of the year. The project has led to the creation of 20 full time construction jobs, with laborers paid 25% more than the market rate for construction workers. This in turn has supported other small businesses in the area as workers often purchase tea and snacks from local shops.


 

Written by

World Centric

 

Read time

4 minutes

 

Published on

May 16, 2018

Subscribe

Be the first to know about new products, educational articles, and exclusive offers for email subscribers only.

X