The global effort to achieve sanitation and water for all by 2030 is extending beyond the household to include institutional settings such as separate washrooms in schools and workspaces. 

About 94% of women are employed in the informal sectors, according to the National Women’s Commission. Such informal sectors lack basic sanitation facilities including toilets. Public toilets, even if available, are often unsanitary and poorly maintained. Without access to toilets, women and girls develop coping strategies like drinking less water that in turn increases the risk for women’s health problems and their well-being, especially in times of menstruation. The extent of the problem is large in the school ecosystem across India

With the mission to create better workplaces that are healthier, safer and more productive, KCP in partnership with Samhita, designed two projects- 

  • Provide improved sanitation infrastructure in rural schools in Maharashtra and nudge children to adopt better sanitation habits
  • Provide increased access to better sanitation facilities for women working in informal markets

How did we impact 2000+ women and children’s lives

Project 1- The project aimed at solving two key challenges-

  • Poor usage of toilets by children in schools, and
  • Absence of hand washing facilities at critical junctures

We collaborated with the Swachh Maharashtra Grand Challenge, a first-of-its-kind open innovation platform, in partnership with the government, corporate & social sector to address the key challenges in the sanitation ecosystem; by identifying and piloting innovative programme models across sanitation value chain. We identified 4 major components under this setup-

How to address the school sanitation ecosystem

Project 1 – The project aimed at solving two key challenges –

  • Poor usage of toilets by children in schools, and
  • Absence of hand washing facilities at critical junctures

We received 50+ innovative solutions from across the country. A thorough review of the applications led us to select the most innovative and sustainable programs that would help build an impactful ecosystem in school sanitation. KCP and Samhita together set the journey from selection to knowledge dissemination for the selected programs:

  • Providing grants to selected pilot programmes
  • Coaching & mentoring
  • Project monitoring & evaluation, and
  • Knowledge dissemination.

The project impacted 2000+ children of Chandrapur, Maharashtra.

How to help women access sanitation in informal markets

The second project aimed at addressing the need for safe sanitation facilities for women working in informal markets. We shortlisted GARV TOILETS and CORO as implementation partners. The project provides sanitation facilities with following features:

To provide holistic, effective and sustainable sanitation impact, four components were designed:

  • Localised Behaviour Change Communication
  • Menstrual Hygiene Management
  • Operations & Maintenance
  • Waste Management

To support the end-to-end implementation of the project, Samhita leveraged their in-house expertise through the following stages- providing operational plans, developing standard operating procedures, monitoring and evaluation progress and outcomes and providing capacity building support for the implementation partners.

The project impacted 2000+ women in Kurla, Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Geographies

Project 1: Chandrapur Maharashtra

Project 2: Kurla, Mumbai, Maharashtra

Impact Numbers

4000+ Lives Touched