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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)

#31

Post by dang »

X86BSD wrote: post #7

This 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…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11362332 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)

#32

Post by dineshp2 »

Great work.

From my visits to Indian villages, open defecation seems more of a choice that the people make. Even though people have toilets in their houses, they still prefer not using it. Of course not everyone has access, but even the ones who do prefer not using it.

Another issue with public toilets I can think of is hygiene. How do you educate a large population to use toilets and use it reasonably, otherwise it would be a disaster for the maintainers and the public. The point is, most people would be first time users.

Another issue is to do with social status and the caste system. How do you plan to get people belonging to different social strata and castes(yes, it still exists!) to use the same toilet. Could you share your experiences regarding this issue so far?

Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)

#33

Post by dominotw »

neel8986 wrote: post #20
X86BSD wrote: post #7

This 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…

I agree with some of the points you made. But saying that indian government has completely failed and it was better under British rule is not completely correct. Some of the achievement of independent India are 1) Fully functional democracy: India is perhaps the only country which is able to avoid a strong dictator among all its colonized peer. We provided universal suffrage from day one. Indian democracy is not perf…

> Independent India has created very strong Institution including a fair Judiciary system

Justice delayed is justice denied. Its a complete joke, locals have no confidence in it. People with money and influence don't go to jail, period( couple of exceptions here and there but mostly true)

Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)

#34

Post by sanrights »

dineshp2 wrote: post #32

Great work. From my visits to Indian villages, open defecation seems more of a choice that the people make. Even though people have toilets in their houses, they still prefer not using it. Of course not everyone has access, but even the ones who do prefer not using it. Another issue with public toilets I can think of is hygiene. How do you educate a large population to use toilets and use it reasonably, otherwise it…

Thanks! You bring up some great points!

In the communities where we work right now, the vast majority of people don't have toilets in their homes, and they do understand the importance of using toilets. Right now, the government offers a reimbursement program for families who build a toilet for their house, but most people cannot afford this upfront cost and see corruption diminish the amount (if/when) they're paid back. Another big issue is land ownership - if families don't own the land they live on, this significant investment doesn't make a lot of financial sense. We see our role standing in solidarity with Indians making these tough decisions with incredible social, health, and economic outcomes.

You rightly pointed out maintenance as another key issue! We sell safe drinking water from our sites and use that revenue to pay for the facility to be cleaned 2x a day and maintained by our staff. We're tracking daily toilet users and see that people use our facility consistently.

There is definitely still social stigma connecting handling human waste and those at the bottom of the caste system. Our model is designed with this understanding. Waste is disposed of directly from the toilet pan into our biogas digester to decompose, so no humans have to handle the waste. We've also have hired members of these communities to work with us, and have seen them promoted and earning more money than the would in another other role.

Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)

#35

Post by srikz »

X86BSD wrote: post #7

This 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…

I feel the 'one step away from Taliban' is taking it too far especially when you probably (I'm assuming here) haven't had any exposure to it other than what we see in the news.

It should also be noted that a lot of the problems in India currently are due to the British rule. Many of the issues seen in India are similar to the issues faced in England during Victorian times probably because of the education and societal values they brought to India.

Now, the country is doing what it can (of course it can be better) with the limited resources and excess population.

Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)

#37

Post by srean »

X86BSD wrote: post #7

This 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…

I upvoted inspite of the exaggeration. I think it was unintentional. You are just generalizing and extrapolating too much from Delhi visit.

That India under British rule was better is an offensive claim, but let me comment on the parts where there is some truth in what you say.

Being an Indian I confirm with sadness that Indian males from many states (more so up north, and more so the type that regurgitates 'all women are to be worshipped, they are like ma bahin (mother and sister)') consider women easy meat as long as no one's looking, sometimes even when they are. In many of these states there are very few platforms for male and female population to share healthy and easy proximity. Heck, the political party that the current prime minister hails from has a long politically profitable history of beating up couples (sometimes on television) for doing just that.

You may have also noticed that incidents of rape often happen across social strata, more specifically most of the rapes (well those that make it into news) are rape up.

A part of the problem is that parts of India are very feudal and deeply hierarchical (Pakistan much more so). One strata shits on those below with entitlement. Pick some from the 'lower' strata, they would have never experienced common courtesy or consideration from strata above, not just the current generation but for generations past. Courtesy, respect and considerations would be alien to them.

It should not surprise anyone that cross strata empathy is almost non-existent.

Now look at who is building the infrastructure to be used by the upper strata, its those who are relatively at the bottom. Do you think they will give much heart into their work ? Its not like they will get to use that infrastructure much or have since generations, just shat on.

Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)

#38

Post by srean »

tn13 wrote: post #11
lostlogin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that link your work? Do you have more about what you do?

No that is not the link to my work. The work I referred to was the work by a local Temple and I was a 15 year old volunteer who laid bricks for toilets. Never had the big picture that time.

There is some irony in here. I know of cases where people broke up the toilets built with govt money just to sell the bricks. I am glad however, that the discussion has been less myopic than I would have otherwise expected: oh look at these poor Indians why don't we get some money and build them toilets.

Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)

#39

Post by vkat »

X86BSD wrote: post #7

This 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…

I agree there is a lot of homelessness, but strongly disagree that the society hates women. I grew up in India and I will say there is a lot of respect for women in India. The uneducated/unemployed people are always there in every country, you will see a higher percentage in India and what you describe is mostly their doings.

Re: Sanitation and Health Rights in India (YC W16 Nonprofit)

#40

Post by hotcool »

avip wrote: post #4
hotcool wrote: post #2

This 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.

I'll reword my comment since you seemed to miss the point: Civic duty goes hand-in-hand with sanitation and health rights. Otherwise, it is unsustainable, even counter-productive to provide toilets for an Indian population that will not use them or maintain them.
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