Swachh Slum Mission

Poor hygiene and sanitation are linked to many diarrhoeal diseases and put people at serious health risks while reducing their quality of living and socio-economic development. According to the World Health Organization, as of 2020, over 1.7 billion people still do not have basic sanitation services, of which 494 million still defecate in the open while many others depend on defunct community toilets. Open defecation is a problem because it results in wide-scale health, environmental and personal safety risks. While the problem is more prevalent in rural India, the high density in urban settlements exaggerates the risks posed to the urban households that practice open defecation.

Children weakened by frequent diarrhoea episodes are vulnerable to malnutrition, stunting, and infections such as pneumonia. Worse, of India's 2.3 million annual deaths among children aged under five years, about 334,000 are attributable to diarrheal diseases (UNICEF report).

Open defecation/dirty and crowded Community Toilets further pose safety threats to women of all ages. In order to avoid going to defecation grounds at night, women and girls in Indian cities, hold their bladders for 13 hours a day, leaving them at risk of urinary tract infections (UTI) and reproductive tract infections (RTI).

Another big WASH issue is related to Solid Waste Management (SWM) in urban slum communities. There is a lack or even absence of awareness even about simple SWM practices like waste segregation and safe disposal of women’s sanitary napkins which contaminates water sources and this has a direct bearing on people’s health.

The Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) have deployed huge networks to manage solid waste but still find it very difficult to track and reach inaccessible households from crowded slums in absence of reliable data and locational tools and convince them to segregate their solid waste.

One Home One Toilet (OHOT) initiative

In 2005, Shelter Associates developed its ‘One Home-One Toilet’ (OHOT) model through trials in small and large cities, finally resulting in a programme that is scalable, replicable, and sustainable. ‘OHOT’ recognizes the importance of individual sanitation and thus innovates beyond the SBM (Swachh Bharat Mission) model to not only facilitate better toilet installation but also sustained toilet usage.

Shelter Associates has so far facilitated more than 26,000 individual toilets vastly improving the health and living conditions of 1.5 lakh individuals directly and our overall sanitation initiatives have impacted over 4 lakh people.

The OHOT model: A Data-driven, Community Centric and Multi-stakeholder approach for comprehensive sanitation solutions for the community.

a. Data Mapping: SA pioneered the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology & Google Earth for poverty mapping in the late ’90s. We create holistic spatial data by mapping settlement patterns and infrastructure in and around each target slum. This mapping data is supplemented with survey data collected at the household level and analyzed to identify the most vulnerable population and plan targeted interventions. The data is finally validated by the Municipalities to add legitimacy to it and also allow for the data to serve them outside of our intervention.

b. Community Mobilization: The second step is to create awareness and bring about behavioural change and apart from generating demand for household toilets, SA‘s emphasis is on the use of these toilets in the community along with the focus on personal hygiene, menstrual hygiene for women, proper disposal of solid waste. To achieve this, we have extensive discussions with community members through various awareness activities such as corner meetings, workshops, games, cleanliness campaigns and focus groups with women, children, adolescent girls and boys and men.

This engagement with the community is carried out by selected volunteers from the area with SA team members. These volunteers are trained to collect data, read maps and create awareness in the community through various engaging activities.

c. Delivering Toilets: The last step is the actual delivery of the toilet. The construction material is provided at the beneficiary’s doorstep which is fully subsidised, while the responsibility and cost of construction are borne by the beneficiaries, allowing for a sense of ownership of the toilet. Passing on the construction responsibility also allows for the construction of customized toilets tailored to the beneficiary’s specific needs. Beneficiaries have the freedom to choose the place of construction and can also plan to upgrade other sections of their house. 52.5% of the sample households included in our internal impact assessment reported having either modified or upgraded their homes while constructing the toilet. Our 3-step intervention thus offers an end-to-end integrated solution for household toilet provision- from planning to behaviour change and finally construction of good quality toilets. The toilets are connected to drainage networks where they exist or constructed with properly functioning septic tanks to make sure that the faecal matter is treated.

Solid Waste Management Workshops

Unsegregated solid waste from homes ends up in landfills causing ground and air pollution and leading to catastrophic damage to surroundings. Solid waste management is very important for the safe disposal of wastes to reduce environmental pollution and avoid related health hazards like infectious diseases. The importance of solid waste management and its effect on public health has been emphasized due to the recent Covid-19 pandemic. 

Our trained team of social workers and community volunteers conduct meetings, discussions, engaging games, street plays, songs, celebrations of related days and physical workshops to demonstrate and create awareness about types of solid wastes, why and how to segregate wet and dry waste, how to dispose of menstrual hygiene products, how to do composting of wet waste etc. Through demonstrations, nudging and positive reinforcement, we create a behavioural change in the communities. We also help community members to coordinate with the respective ULB members wherever required to lay drainage lines, arrange for garbage bins, and clear dumping sites.

 Menstrual Hygiene Workshops

Underprivileged women in India lack awareness and means to address menstrual health. Today, many girls from slums are using a disposable pad, but at what cost? An individual goes through approximately 11,000 disposable pads and/or tampons in a lifetime. Modern-day disposal pads are toxic, non-biodegradable have large life cycles and these ultimately clog our landfills for decades creating substantial amounts of untreated waste while the lack of affordable menstrual hygiene products add to the financial woes of underprivileged women.

To address twin problems related to environmental degradation and period poverty, we have developed a module which educates women and adolescent girls about the female anatomy, emotional, and physiological changes during menstruation, conservative attitudes around menstruation, the importance of menstrual hygiene, hazards of disposable pads on women’s health and environment.

We recommend and demonstrate the use of eco-friendly sanitary products like menstrual cups and cloth pads. Women form groups, and discuss their experiences during menstruation and encourage each other to adopt suggested eco-friendly sanitation products. Our team is in touch with the women regularly and provides guidance as required.

Use of Plus Codes

Plus Codes are alpha-numeric codes which work as locational digital addresses for people or places that don’t have one. Plus Codes are based on latitude and longitude and displayed as numbers and letters. People living in crowded slums struggle to possess a unique address causing delays in the availability of essential services.

This code can be used on Google Maps and will allow residents to access services such as postal, emergency services, gas cylinders & other online services. Additionally, by linking this code to Shelter Associates’ data, WaSH infrastructure facilities within the slum, such as Community Toilets, and other amenities can also be located easily. City Municipal Corporations are able to provide basic facilities & welfare schemes to needy households efficiently and accurately.

Shelter Associates has partnered with Google to generate and assign these unique Plus Codes to every slum household. Our team of GIS experts also facilitates ingestion of the narrowest slum roads into Google Earth, rendering the Plus Codes effective as a locational tool for last-mile delivery.

We have provided 48,000 Plus Codes so far to households in slums.

1. Individual toilet for each household (Access to safe sanitation for the families)
2. Reduction in the incidence of Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs) among adolescent girls and women
3. Adoption of hand hygiene practices by the community
4. With the increase in the number of household toilets, there will be a reduction in toilet seat to family ratio which will lead to lowering the burden on the Community Toilets. This will bring down the expenditure on the maintenance of the Community Toilets for ULBs.
5. Waste segregation at the source and safe disposal leading to clean surroundings and an environment
6. Enhances the sense of dignity, privacy and safety among the slum dwellers