Village Awareness Campaign-antej Village, Gandhinagar District

                Village Awareness Campaign

             Santej Village, Gandhinagar District

From 26 - 27 February, we traveled to Santej Village, Gandhinagar with the Nandini Van to conduct

new sanitation awareness programs. In addition to the core ESI staff, we were joined by a number of international volunteers from the United States, including Dr. Sarik from Stanford University in California who was in India conducting research based on some of our underlying values and methodologies and those from our partner organizations.

We reached Santaj on the morning of the 26th, a Wednesday. After receiving warm greetings, first step was to meet with the local leaders of the village to learn about their specific needs and challenges. As is typical in such poor,

rural setups, we heard and saw the sanitation issues in the form of improperly disposed of solid waste, poor health and hygiene habits, dirty drinking water, and we also heard about a number of issues with the women, such as the demoralizing problem of open defecation in the absence of toilets.

After, we shared our sanitation exhibition outside of the Nandini Van. We displayed a posters demonstrating good sanitation and hygiene practices, such as use of toilets, regularly washing hands, cutting finger nails, brushing teeth, and properly disposing of waste. This attention-grabbing exhibition is one of our ways of gathering the residents, lovingly

interacting with them, and passing on educational information. For some who visited with us, it was the 1st exposure to this kind of information and highly informative. Our impressive Nandini Van, standing tall and proud, also lets everybody know just how serious we take sanitation. She gives us credibility, which is important given the low education level in village setups, as well as the common lack of interest you find in such situations when trying to inspire change. We concluded this program by getting out our jadoos (brooms) and cleaning a portion of the community with the residents, this practice is also key for building the kind of relationships that inspire others to make positive changes in their lives and communities.

We then visited a nearby primary school and had the opportunity to address 500 students in their assembly hall. Here, as in the village, we shared about the vital importance of developing proper sanitation and hygiene habits, how this gives yourself dignity, and prevents disease. With kids, we tend share in the form of playful children’s songs, comedy skits, and puppet shows to make the experience and material more fun and age appropriate.

Many children joined us as we left the school for an inspired rally around the village. During this time we sang bhajans together and chanted sanitation slogans such as, “Pivano panni! Gade nahin pio!” Not only is this a lot of fun that gets everybody involved enthusiastic, but it also builds a motivational vibration that tends to make people want to adopt better sanitation and hygiene habits. It really does feel better to be actively involved in the betterment of your life and community than it does to be a part of the problem. As lovingly as possible, we try and help people to see this.

After some rest, we went door-to-door to all the homes spreading the word about our evening

program to try and encourage people to come. These home visits were not just about giving an invitation, but more importantly were a precious opportunity to talk with residents as if they were our next door neighbors. Sometimes we would stop for tea, share stories, listen to challenges, and pass on our values. This process also helps relationship building and so sustainability.

A number of residents did end up joining us for our formal sanitation presentation in the evening outside of the Nandini Van. We began, as we usually do, with an all religions prayer to ground our sharing in the right kind of spirit. From there, we introduced ourselves, introduced the work of ESI and Ishwardada Patel, our results and way of life. We showed a few short films about sanitation that, through humor, communicate the kind of values we are trying to pass on. Our goal during this time was to communicate as much information as we could in the limited time we had and most importantly,

inspire the residents to be the change by showing them just how important it is to do such basic things as use a toilet, wash hands, and dispose of waste.

We began the morning of Day 2, Thursday, with prahbatt feri, or singing of bhajans around the village. This creates a spiritual atmosphere in the community and also shows the residents this side of our work. We are not just trying to create an outcome of a cleaner society and world, we also feel as if we are serving God at the same time. This tends to touch people’s hearts and communicates we are not just trying to do a job, but are on a sacred mission.

After tea and breakfast and with the help of our volunteers, we painted inspirational sanitation slogans and images on some of the walls of the community to serve as a reminder in our absence.

Repeated exposure to positive sayings is known to cause similar behavioral change and is an effective tactic when trying to uplift a struggling community, i.e., outer to inner beauty.

We concluded the 2-day program by sitting with a number of women in the local Anganwdi (pre-school). In the absence of toilets, women have a particularly difficult time, as they will forego use until after dark when nobody can see them. This is unsafe and demoralizing. We wanted to hear from them and give them some reassurance that we would help in any way we could.