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We have been making steady progress at Water Centric with just over 2 years under our belt! Here is a look at what we have accomplished in the past few months…
One of the things I most like to do at Water Centric, is inform and engage the next generation on global problems and challenges related to getting a staggering 2.6 Billion people access to sanitation and 1.2 Billion access to clean water.
This spring, I had the pleasure of visiting four great New England universities: Boston University, Tufts, Brown, and Brandeis to talk to students about this issue and tell them about what we are doing here at Water Centric. I was invited to be a guest lecturer for students focused on a range of interests from Non-Profit Management (at BU), to International Conflict and Coexistence (at Brandeis), the Economics of Urbanization (at Tufts) and a discussion on Careers in the Common Good (at Brown).
One thing I’ve learned for sure: if the critical challenge of delivering clean water and sanitation to the world’s most impoverished people is ever going to be solved, we will need the energy, enthusiasm, can-do attitude and smarts of this current generation of students.
This week , one newspaper article put the challenge this way:
“In 1950, fewer than 30 percent of the world’s 2.5 billion inhabitants lived in urban regions. By 2050, almost 70 percent of the world’s estimated 10 billion inhabitants – or more than the number of people living today – will be part of massive urban networks. … As these megacities evolve in the developing world, many groan under the weight of a sudden, massive, and unprecedented demand for services never seen in the West. The basic necessities of clean water [and] sanitation systems to remove megatons of garbage and human waste…are creating one of the greatest logistical challenges ever seen in human history.” The Christian Science Monitor, May 10, 2010
We, at Water Centric, look forward to young people rolling up their sleeves to tackle the problems the world has been struggling with for decades. I am convinced that they may also be our best hope for success!
Lotika
Lotika Shaunik Paintal
Founder and Executive Director
Water Centric, Inc.
Diwali, also known as “Festival of Lights,” is a time of celebration and thanksgiving in India, for victory of good over evil. This year, in honor of Diwali, on November 5 2010, Water Centric is hosting a six-month Twitter Diwali campaign – “Twiwali” - so that people can express their gratitude for the essentials of clean water and sanitation - while helping others to have the same - by making a simple donation and creating awareness through social sites like Twitter. What follows is one Water Centric volunteer’s account of why he is grateful for toilets. We encourage you to submit your stories on why you are grateful for toilets to our blog as well
A surreal bathroom experience!
By Bhaskar Koukuntla
On a cold November evening, my wife and I decided to celebrate our wedding anniversary by having dinner with a few of our family friends at the Mantra restaurant in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Mantra is very close to our respective work places and is conveniently nestled on a side street between the Theatre district and Downtown Crossing. We had heard a lot about this place as the only restaurant in Boston serving Indo-French cuisine, and that it is located in a building that was previously a bank constructed in the 1800’s. Their décor is unique and in fact their bar is a former “Teller’s cage.” Details of the décor include marble walls and floors, silk drapery, and exotic mirrors with beautiful lighting.
Upon arriving at the restaurant, I paid a visit to the Men’s Room. It was stunningly beautiful with elegant mirrors, very clean and exotic sinks, and elegant glass stalls. The doors to the individual stalls were made of what looked like translucent glass and looked beautiful. Once I stepped in, I was shocked that I could see the outside! My friend was at the sink washing his hands and he suddenly turned around, looked towards my stall and pointed his finger towards me and started laughing. I was shocked!!! I felt embarrassed and wondered how the restaurant could have not thought about this. I suddenly felt very vulnerable and awkward for such lack of privacy.
When I emerged, pretending that I had not noticed anything, my friend explained that you cannot look in from the outside, however the user can see out from inside the stall. This was trick décor with no compromise to privacy at all!! But just the illusion that my privacy was compromised had made me sick to my stomach.
Putting this surreal bathroom experience in perspective, millions of underprivileged families and kids around the world do not have access to the most basic sanitation facilities. They sit outdoors every day exposed to prying eyes and the elements! Water Centric is currently working towards constructing functional toilets for a school for 1433 girls in India. With a small contribution from all of us who are privileged and take such necessities for granted, we can make a change in the lives of all these kids! So this Diwali, spread some light by making a contribution at www.watercentric.org/Twiwali.html
Come join in the conversation, get involved, and this Diwali help us to bring about change that really matters in the lives of 1433 school-children.
Visit Water Centric’s Twiwali Campaign
Today’s blog post is a perspective from one of our volunteers working on launching the Water Centric’s Diwali/Twiwali campaign. We encourage you to support the campaign and also consider submitting your stories and experiences related to the lack of clean water and/or functional toilets to our blog.
By Saurabh Saksena
It was a sunny afternoon in Yichang, China when we International Leadership Laureate Scholars ate a traditional Chinese meal that soon had an effect on our stomachs. As the bus started its journey through the rich, green scenery of Yichang, a few of us felt the urge to use the rest room. After consulting with the tour guide and the bus driver, we were told that the next rest room was a half hour away.
Just then, an American girl shouted, “It is urgent!” The bus stopped, people rushed to the green pastures, and relieved themselves. Luckily people had toilet rolls and drinking water. That was my first tryst without a functional toilet. Embarrassing! And as a boy, I thought, what about the girls?
How many of us have ever been thankful that we can actually access functional toilets when we need to? It is funny that something which is a necessity in the western world is still a privilege in the eastern world. While toilets are still a luxury in many parts of rural India, even more unsettling is the fact that 17% of city residents in India, or nearly 55 million people, do not have functional toilets. Fewer than 10% of Indian cities have a proper sewage system. And most of us are also found wanting in the hygiene education department.
Friends, it is all linked: lack of functional toilets, proper sewage system, and hygiene. And we cannot blame the government for anything and everything. We have to shoulder some responsibility.
How many of us in the developing world allow our maids and servants to use our toilets if they have an urgent need? The common answer is: “They will leave it dirty.” OK. So is it that difficult to teach them some basic hygiene?
Think a moment about those poor school kids who are seen sitting under the open sky to attend to nature’s call. Surprised? Go to an area near a municipal school locality in Delhi and chances are you will see a similar story. When I saw that, my first reaction was: can’t these school kids use the toilets in schools? It turns out that many of these municipal schools do not have functional toilets.
Kids have to use the school’s backyard if need be or hold it till they reach home. And girls not only have to face the agony and indignity of leering men, they also have to take time off from school during their menstrual cycles.
Fortunately, we have people and organizations who are addressing the issue of sanitation in India. And luckily I, through my Harvard program, have found one such organization – Water Centric - that is helping to bring functional toilets, clean drinking water facilities, and hygiene education to a number of municipal schools in Delhi with a vision of expanding similar efforts in other parts of the country as well.
Recently, Water Centric has selected a municipal school in the Sri Niwas Puri area to help 1433 school girls by renovating and building functional toilets and water stations in their school plus training the teachers and kids to participate in maintaining these new facilities via active student-run hygiene education clubs.
I, with a few other Harvard colleagues, have joined this noble cause. We have launched a campaign Twiwali to raise funds for this school by Diwali this year. I urge you all to visit the campaign link and help us. It is not only about donating dollars, though that will most certainly help (Water Centric is a registered non-profit in US)! For my friends living in India, follow us on Twitter and Facebook, join our newsletter email list, and most importantly spread awareness of this cause by word of mouth.
Diwali is still six months away but we all know time flies and we may miss the opportunity to bring change in these girls’ lives. So act now.
This Diwali let us all spread some light and give the gift of health, and a little privacy, to these 1433 girls. Let us show them that we care!
Vande Mataram.
Greetings! We just finished working on an introductory video that will tell you a little more about our 10 school initiative in Delhi. Let us know your thoughts.
Turn Social Chatter into Water!
WHEN: Tuesday, October 27, 2009
TIME: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
WHERE: Tantric India Bistro
123 Stuart Street
Boston, MA 02116
Get informed, inspired and engaged. You are invited to a discussion on the global water/sanitation crisis. Did you know, 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water 2.6 billion people lack access to toilets … and of course this is leading to a huge health crisis!
Yes, we can all do something to change the status quo. Come spend a social evening with Water Centric at Boston’s Tantric India Bistro. Water Centric’s founder Lotika Paintal and other team members will be there to share an insider perspective on the global water/sanitation crisis and what Water Centric is doing about it. Read more at: http://www.watercentric.org
Cost: $20 – includes a drink, hors d’oeuvres, and a great evening! Feel free to bring friends.
“I would get permission to lock all but one of our school toilets and then charge kids at school 10 cents every time they had to use it, so they would realize how important toilets are to kids who don’t have them,” said one creative middle schooler. “Then I’d donate the money to Water Centric to build a toilet for kids in slum schools in India.”
Kids from all over Metrowest Boston learned about “flying toilets” * and water stations during three presentations by Water Centric, as part of the Education and Leadership for a Nonviolent Age (ELNA)’s Annual Leadership Conference of middle schoolers on October 9, 2009. The kids then brainstormed creative ways to organize fundraising events from pumpkin festivals to tag sales so that kids in other parts of the world could have clean drinking water and toilets.
ELNA member middle and high schools are in Natick, Lincoln, Maynard, Shrewsbury, Hudson, Harvard, Westborough, and Lunenburg, Massachusetts in an initiative to encourage children to demonstrate leadership skills, social awareness, and civic responsibility. To learn more about ELNA, click on http://www.elnacollaborative.org/ELNA/Welcome.html
* A ‘flying toilet’ is a plastic bag that gets used as a toilet and is then thrown out the window into the street!
Water Centric finished renovation on a water station for school kids at the Julaina MCD School in Delhi. The old and decrepit station was no longer functioning properly. It leaked, the drains were easily clogged, the foundation area was moldy and unhygienic, it lacked a suitable shelf to collect the water, and there were insufficient taps.All that is in the past. Thanks to funds raised by H2O For Life and Water Centric, and for supervision of the project by its local partner Sakshi, the children have good access to clean water with a renovated and fully functional station. Now, the kids don’t have to get wet in order to get a drink of water and the station is no longer a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The kids are proud of their new facility!
You can follow the progression of this project in our photo journal below. Water Centric was launched in February 2008. Its first initiative is to help provide clean water, functional toilets/sanitation and hygiene education to 10 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) schools. This project serves the needs of 10,000 students, most of whom come from the poorest and most deprived communities.
In February 2009, the Principal of the Molar Band MCD School in New Delhi, explained to Lotika Shaunik Paintal, founder of Water Centric, how the construction of a small septic tank can make a huge difference in the lives of a 1000 young school girls:
“I am so grateful that Water Centric will be building a septic tank for our school. Our toilets, although constructed four years ago are unusable, as the city sewers still do not extend to our school. The new septic tank will allow our 1000 students to maintain their dignity and get some privacy by using toilets –instead of squatting outdoors as they currently do every school day to relieve themselves!”
Water Centric wasted no time. The septic tank was completed in less than 2 months while the school was closed for summer recess. Funds were raised in the USA with help from H2O for Life and the Asian Club at Chelsea High School. The Molar Band School in New Delhi also made an in-kind contribution. Meanwhile, Water Centric’s NGO partner in India, Sakshi, made sure that the construction process went smoothly on the ground.
The facilities are now operational. The 1000 students have resumed classes after vacation – and are finally able to access functioning toilets for the first time ever.
The Kathmandu Solid Waste Management Service (KSWM) recently initiated a mobile public toilet program. The toilets, which look like big vans, are convenient as well as eco-friendly.
Basu Upreti, executive director of KSWM said:
“Nearly 800 people are using the mobile toilet daily since we installed it. It’s our effort to address a rather real problem that people are facing.”
The waste from the toilets is treated to destroy harmful contents and in the future KSWM plans to recycle the waste as compost and biogas.
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