SHG has its say on a bathroom

Bharat Dogra, Basari (Jharkhand)

THE Dalit hamlet of Basari in Hussainabad block of Jharkhand’s Palamau district has an exceptionally clean street. Clean water is available too, from an overhead water tank and hand pumps.

But the highlight of the street is a new community bathroom that can be used by any woman in this hamlet at any time of the day. Even in the evening the bathing space was still being used. It is valued because it provides much needed privacy to women.

Pinky Devi, who coordinates a Self-Help Group (SHG) called Roshni in this village, said that the bathroom has been very useful for women and adolescent girls because it provides them privacy. It has helped to improve their hygiene.

The community bathroom is properly covered and safe. It has also been constructed close to a water station that includes a water tank and a solar pump set. It is thus very easy to obtain water at any time of the day here.

The idea has spread to other villages. Similar bathrooms for women, close to water stations, can be seen in other villages of Hussainabad block. The bathrooms have been constructed under a project called HRIDAY, supported by LIC (Housing Finance Ltd.) and implemented by Sahbhagi Shikshan Sansthaan, a local non-profit. 

Apart from development needs, the project’s main focus was the welfare of women and weaker sections. Women were organized into SHGs in several villages. They were asked what their priorities were.

The project proponents found that in hamlets inhabited by people from marginalized sections, proper bathing places did not exist in many homes. So, women and adolescent girls often had to take quick, hurried baths in open spaces, sometimes leading to embarrassing situations affecting their dignity and even safety.

All these problems were resolved by the creation of safe and clean community bathing places for women which can be used in complete privacy at any time of the day.

The costs for creating such community bathing places, in consultation with local women, were not high, since only one or two are needed, depending on the female population of the hamlet. The project has been deeply appreciated by the women and can be replicated in other villages, including urban slums.

In many villages, especially the hamlets of marginalized people, toilets have been improperly constructed so open defecation is still being practised. The ODF (open defecation-free) status of villages needs to be reviewed.

Implementation requires people’s participation. In one hamlet called Mahuari in Hussainabad block, the construction of toilets was much better than in some of the neighbouring areas. The reason was that women here had been very well-organized into an SHG called Parvati. The women intervened and stopped highly flawed construction of toilets from going ahead. It was on the insistence of these women that toilet construction was substantially improved.

The result is that the toilets here are far better constructed and much more widely used. There are lessons from such initiatives for India’s sanitation programmes. They should be implemented and planned with the close involvement and participation of local people.