From her house in the Kamarahalli village of the Gundlupet taluk of Chamarajanagar, 11-year-old Suchitra K.P. would see her classmates run to their school almost an hour before assembly was scheduled to begin. They were not motivated by midday meals or special classes or that extra glass of milk to which they were entitled.
“My friends were running to school to use the toilets. They were ashamed to trek to the fields near their houses to relieve themselves,” says Suchitra. “I had a toilet in my house, and most of my friends wanted toilets in their homes, too.”
Her hair pinned neatly in two double plaits, Suchitra wears her school uniform — checked shirt, green skirt, and a striped red tie — with pride. She is a student of a government higher primary school in Kamarahalli.
Suchitra
Disturbed by the fact that her friends had no choice but to use the fields to defecate, she spoke to the then CEO of Chamarajanagar Zilla Panchayat, Hephsiba Rani Korlapati, during a field trip in November last year.
Ms. Korlapati, who was struck by her empathy and determination, decided to make Suchitra the face of USHA (Understand Sensitise Help Achieve), a campaign aimed at reaching out to every girl child in the district and take on issues such as child marriage and access to hygienic toilets.
No room for a toilet
The fields in the Ramapura village in Chamarajanagar — approximately 150 km from Bengaluru — are dotted with brick and thatched roof houses, some with a single room, others boasting three bedrooms. But a majority of the houses share one common feature: the absence of indoor toilets.
Chamarajanagar has been identified as one of the more backward districts in Karnataka by the D.M. Nanjundappa committee report on redressal of regional imbalance.
Superstitious practices are rife in a community that is battling malnutrition, child marriages and teenage pregnancies. The day Suchitra spoke to Ms. Korlapati, the district administration was readying to unveil USHA. They quickly roped in the 11-year-old and this spur-of-the-moment decision gave additional impetus to the campaign, which was launched on November 25, the U.N. International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women.
In the two months between November 25, 2016 and January 24 this year (observed as the National Girl Child Day in India), students, schoolteachers and elected representatives of 130 gram panchayats, along with the district administration, constructed 9,403 toilets and began work on another 9,000 under the Swachh Bharath Mission. This was a marked increase when compared with their earlier record, in which 7,000 toilets were constructed between April 1 and November 25, 2016.
The face of USHA
Suchitra, the face of USHA, played her part in the campaign’s success. She personally convinced 20 families in her village to construct toilets, often roping in local officials. Soon, the campaign began to gain momentum. V. Roopashree, who works as an assistant teacher at a school in the Ramapura village, and mentored students from five schools, says: “It was challenging to persuade people to construct toilets because we are affected by a severe drought. Although villagers would be reimbursed for their expenses under the Swachh Bharath Mission, they had other financial commitments.” Students were the driving force of the campaign. “Children told their parents that they would not go to school until their parents agreed to construct a toilet. Together we organised road showsand helped spread awareness on diseases caused by open defecation,” says Ms. Roopashree.
At the start of the campaign, only 80 of the 500 houses in Ramapura village had toilets. “During our two-month campaign, we built 300 toilets,” says Roopashree.
Munesh V, 32, who has a three-bedroom house where ten people reside, appears perplexed. “Everybody in the village goes to the fields to do their job. But the three children in our family said that going to the fields to relieve themselves affected their dignity. There was a silent protest at home and I had no option but to give in,” he says. He got a toilet constructed in December.
