The pilgrimage tour of Sanitation for grassroots

Gandhinagar is the capital city of Gujarat and it is the cleanest most and greenest capital city in Asia. However it is not that great in terms of sanitation and cleanliness in its villages. How to bring awareness about sanitation in the villages is a challenge.

In look out for the possibilities of change district development officers had visited Environment and Sanitation Institute, ESI Sugadh 1 or 2 times. Learning about the strong culture, values and work about ESI officers felt that ESI can be a change maker in making Gandhinagar a Nirmal district. They immediately set up a meeting on 24^th Dec,  which was attended by about 60 people.

The meeting was attended by Suresh Parmar who floated few ideas:

·         Pilgrimage of Sanitation: how ESI is playing the role of pilgrimage of sanitation

·     Action Interaction model : Interaction complementing action and vice versa can only be the sustainable way, how can we ensure the same

·     Small Acts Big Difference :  small actions such as cutting / hand washing / combing can play big role in shifting the mind

·   Focus on understanding: for toilet construction the focus should be on understanding rather than on construction of toilet itself

It was discussed that there are many villages in GandhiNagar, and to address the scale a pilot is to be run targeting leaders of 100 villages. 110 village leaders including Sarpanch and village administrative officers were invited for a day long retreat on 31^st Dec in two shifts.

Shift 1 : 57 leaders from 50 villages

DRDA – District Rural Development Agency, conducts few such visits to various institutions and the officers had a that it would be difficult to hold attention of Sarpanch (village head) for more than an hour.

All 57 leaders were welcomed at the institute and were offered tea.  During tea in the company of nature they felt bonded with the campus. In the first session PadhmashriIshwarbhaipatel’ssafaisadhna and his work on low cost sustainable rural technology was shared.  A humble effort was made to make understand the work through documentaries.

In the second session sharing was done about ESI. On listening to optimal and beautiful utilization of all five elements of nature i.e. earth, water, sun, air and sky, all participants felt happy.

The vibes were visible that everyone is on sanitation pilgrimage. Deriving inspiration from Gandhiji’s quote “be the change you want to see in the world”, many shared that the change will begin with self only.

All the participants were here just for 90 minutes but they stayed more than 3 hours challenging the notion that it would be difficult to hold their attention for more than an hour clearly it’s the impact of the space !

Shift 2 : 53 leaders from 50 villages

At 2 PM the first session started with a visit of institute wherein participants were shown five elements in action through roof water harvesting, architecture of the building, bio gas plant, ground water harvesting, air ventilation etc. Everyone felt if cared properly nature gives us a lot

After (sansthadarshan)  the visit of ESI – tea with compassion was served that brought the change in the topic – Giftivism i.e. how can you become the gift to the villagers. “Jaat ne badlo ,gaambadlachhe” change yourself the village will change !

Suresh Parmar shared the concept of Laddership : Cooperate - co create than leave behind while taking everyone together. Few inspiring and motivating videos such as  Share and care and Lead India were shown followed with a question and answer session. In total the classroom session lasted for two hours.

Everyone felt immense gratitude for the space. They shared that no one gave us direction in this manner before, and that had they got the directions earlier they would have been different people.

Nandini van – a vehicle customized to spread awareness about sanitation has veen to more than 6000 villages, Suresh bhai shared that Nandini can visit their village if there is request for sanitation and other awareness programs.

Throughout the day 110 village leaders visited, we surrendered to them, because of purity of our heart, their heart connected to us. With deep listening a glow of inspiration on almost everyone’s face was visible.

31^st December, the last day of the year, is birthday of our noble friendNipun Patel, a firm believer of laddership . He is spreading awareness about Gandhi and Vinoba’s ideas while living by example, the day whole was dedicatedto him and his humble efforts!

Ripples and Impact:

·         Many people shared that the knowledge we attained here, it would do magic

·         Village leader (sarpanch) of Vasai village shared that he will bring 25 people from my village.

·     Another leader shared willingness to construct a Demo toilet and committed to take responsibility of campaign

·         At least 60 people connected and took contact number with the commitment to do small acts of kindness

·         Already got invitation from 24 villages to bring Nandini van to the village, villagers showed willingness to bear the expenditure

·         8 – 10 people called and asked how to take it further