Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
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Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
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Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
#2This is a wonderful idea, but sanitation and health rights goes hand-in-hand with civic duty to where one lives and works. It's not just the responsibility of governments to keep an environment safe and clean. Citizens must do their part, such as minimize their ecological footprint, pick up litter in their communities, be a good neighbour and so on.
A sense of civic duty seems to be amiss nowadays. Just look at the streets strewn with litter, or the runaway urban sprawl by rich land developers who have no regard for natural habitats.
We can't just throw money at the problem. That's not sustainable. People need to be educated to take responsibility for their surroundings.
We all have an impact on the environment. We all have a say. It is our world.
Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
#3[deleted]
Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
#4This is a wonderful idea, but sanitation and health rights goes hand-in-hand with civic duty to where one lives and works. It's not just the responsibility of governments to keep an environment safe and clean. Citizens must do their part, such as minimize their ecological footprint, pick up litter in their communities, be a good neighbour and so on. A sense of civic duty seems to be amiss nowadays. Just look at the s…
This may be true on some poetic level, but helps little the Indian kid who has to urinate somewhere.
Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
#5This is great.
Sometimes the problems of open defecation are more complex than just a lack of toilets.
Here's a short article that mentions some of these: http://www.irinnews.org/report/102414/when-shit-happens
Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
#6Sanitation is the proverbial uphill battle in India. West and affluent Indians often do not understand the full extent of issues here. Some 15 years ago we built 5 toilets (along with flush) for a community of sheep shepherds deep into the jungles of Maharashtra-India. 6 years later when we visited them again it was embarrassing to see that they were using the toilets as shelter for their sheep and still defecating in open.
Their logic was flawless. Why should we change our priorities because you think what we are doing is wrong. We thought it was a lesson not to interfere in their affairs any more.
Some changed land regulation laws made their land extremely valuable. 5 years back these people sold their land for multi-million dollars. Now these people are into Trucking and Fishing business with homes better than mine own.
This is a anecdotal evidence and must not be used for any kind of conclusion. I visited Dharavi-Mumbai(largest slum in world) where there is literally no space for toilets. Every morning there will be like 1000 people trying to use like 20 toilets. There are people who then have no choice but to defecate in side their home in a reusable utensil and throw it out in gutter. Men can defecate in open but women sometimes even soil themselves standing in line. It is pretty horrible given that this is the same place responsible for making snacks for millions of Mumbai residents. [1]
[1] http://sanitation.indiawaterportal.org/english/node/2918
Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
#7This is such an incredibly sad Country. My wife is Indian, from Noida, we went there two years ago. I saw much of Delhi. The amount of pollution, poverty, filth, homelessness including children that are begging in the streets hooked on who knows what drugs and being molested and raped is staggering.
I remember one little girl maybe 10 that came up to my wife and I because she saw my wife using a small travel bottle of hand sanitizer. And she really wanted it. Didn't ask for money just that little bottle of hand sanitizer. She thought it was lotion. We gave it to her and she tried to use it like lotion on her arms and hands. She just wanted to be a little girl doing little girl things. She was covered in dirt, hadn't bathed in who knows how long.
It's effing heart breaking there. I mean that. Women are constantly harassed at best, gang raped at worse. They can't go out after dark in most of the country. Indian male society HATES women. It's literally one step away from the Taliban. Not all Indian men, but its a majority. Women are not safe there at all. The police are lazy and useless. Corruption is rampant. Everyone is out for themselves. It's dog eat dog. Rolling blackouts. Unfit water supply. No proper sewage. Appalling infastructure. The country was in better shape under British rule. And that PAINS me to say that being Irish in blood. The Indian government has just failed the people. They are xenophobic when it comes to business. State run monopolies or family owned monopolies large and small. Very very hard for non Indian controlled capitalism to get in there.
It is just such an depressing place. Which is incredibly sad because it has so much beauty and history and culture and food! I don't know what happened to that place. You go from the Karma sutra, an epic depiction of the love of women to gang raping women on a daily basis. WTF?
Ugh, it's just sad.
Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
#8This is such an incredibly sad Country. My wife is Indian, from Noida, we went there two years ago. I saw much of Delhi. The amount of pollution, poverty, filth, homelessness including children that are begging in the streets hooked on who knows what drugs and being molested and raped is staggering. I remember one little girl maybe 10 that came up to my wife and I because she saw my wife using a small travel bottle o…
[deleted]
Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
#9Sanitation is the proverbial uphill battle in India. West and affluent Indians often do not understand the full extent of issues here. Some 15 years ago we built 5 toilets (along with flush) for a community of sheep shepherds deep into the jungles of Maharashtra-India. 6 years later when we visited them again it was embarrassing to see that they were using the toilets as shelter for their sheep and still defecating i…
Is that link your work? Do you have more about what you do?
Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)
#10UNICEF put out a rather humurous video called "Take The Poo to the Loo" an attempt at changing the cultural acceptance of defecating whereever they seem fit.