I was honored and humbled to serve as “Toilet Warrior” on March 31 and April 1 for Rotary Club of Ann Arbor North (RCAAN) and D6380, for a final site tour, inspecting and assessing the impact of two Rotary Foundation sponsored sanitation-focused Global Grants which are led by RCAAN as international sponsor since early 2016. The two host groups were D3291 Foundation (representing 39 Calcutta area Rotary clubs), and the Rotary Club of Calcutta-Midtown (RCCM).
The goals of both sanitation projects are to end open defecation and break the cycle of generational poverty by empowering rural women with safe, private sanitation facilities so that they can educate their children better, learn sustainable vocations to augment their income, and thereby regained their dignity.
Calcutta (population ~15 million) is the home of Poet Rabindranath Tagore, India’s Nobel Prize winner in Literature, and is also known as City of Joy where Mother Teresa (beatified in 2016 as St. Teresa of Calcutta) served the poor and rescued the sick and orphans off the streets. (Two past D6380 delegations to Calcutta were led by PDG Terry Youlton for Polio Eradication efforts in the late 1990s, and it is also the site of a 3H Grant co-funded by D6380 for a diabetes research hospital).
RCAAN and RCCM began Project Dignity in 2011-12 as a Simplified District Grant project for $18,000, and the successful implementation of 120 in-home toilets and lessons learned were used by RCAAN to organize these two new Rotary Foundation Global Grant projects, which have since engaged the financial support of Rotary Clubs of Ann Arbor North, Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor West, Chelsea, Ferndale, Milan, Novi, Saline and Ypsilanti Rotary Clubs.
I am pleased to report that both Global Grant projects have far exceeded their original targets of rural in-home toilets awarded to below-poverty-line villagers subsisting in the Sundarbans - a lush mangrove forest with high biodiversity located in the Ganges River Delta outside Kolkata. This achievement was possible due to frugal money management by our dedicated Rotary partners and project chairs in India, who used bulk procurement of raw materials and supplies, solicited free labor and services from local toilet awardees or providers, and leveraged with Exide India Battery Corporation which augmented Global Grant funds - all of these allowed RCCM, our Project Dignity partner Club, to add 80 more toilets over the original goal of 320 toilets. Each toilet costs approximately $210/unit and comprises of 2 composting septic tanks to store solid waste while microbial action prepares it in 3-4 months to be used as fertilizer for the farms.
(1) Global Grant 1527157 ($96k) with District 3291 Foundation and ~30 Calcutta area Clubs has completed 526 toilets (original goal was 500). I was graciously hosted for the review by D3291 Foundation Chair Rotn Jayanta Chatterji on March 31, 2018. See photo.
(2) Global Grant 1526428 ($84k + investment by Exide Battery) on Project Dignity undertaken with the Rotary Club of Calcutta-Midtown (RCCM), and 7 co-sponsor Michigan Rotary Clubs has now completed 400 toilets (as of April 1) with the NGO Sri Ramakrishna Ashram Nimpith (SRAN)...The project will conclude with 420 toilets by end of May 2018. Photos show toilets are named for each sponsor Club from D6380.
On April 1 early morning, I accompanied the ever energetic Rotn Rakesh Sahni, my Project Co-Chair of RCCM and 6 of his club members - Radhika Sahni, Ruby and Matoo Sikri, Samir Prasad, Joydeep Sanyal, and Sumi Agrawal Past-President of Inner Wheel Club of Calcutta-Midtown and our chief instigator for Project Dignity in 2009 - we toured for over five hours in ~105F steamy temperatures across a 2 km area in the lush biodiversity of the Sundarbans. We toured an area occupied by both Muslim and Hindu communities co-existing harmoniously, led by the Ramkrishna Ashram’s monks and two sanitation contractors, both, on foot and by vehicle over narrow, often precarious sandy embankments to inaugurate 20 new rural toilets. These toilets will empower rural woman-run households with health, hygiene and safety to enable them to take up sustainable vocations and thus, raise their living standards.
In conclusion, I am grateful to Rotn Ashish Sarkar of RC Ann Arbor for undertaking a site visit with RCCM members to the Sundarbans on February 5, 2018, when the previous batch of 20 toilets was inaugurated. Five RCAAN members also toured with me to inaugurate the first batch of 40 toilets completed in March 2016: John Copeland, Matt Copeland, Bryan Schindel, Laura VanSteenis and Tamra Ward. The following photos don’t do sufficient justice to portraying the harsh realities of rural life in the Sundarbans, which is highly vulnerable to climate change, or to the hardships and challenges of bringing sanitation supplies and training/followup to these secluded communities. The dedication of our local Rotary and NGO partners is commendable!
RCAAN’s third sanitation focused Global Grant 1635112 ($36,000) was awarded in March 2018, and will begin in May 2018 in Bungamati, Nepal with partners RC Chandragiri (Nepal), RC Singapore and Nepal Consul General’s Office in Singapore - the goal is to improve school sanitation and community hygiene with new toilets for 4 girls schools which are being rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 2015. A site tour is planned in October 2018. Stay tuned!
Written by Manish Mehta
Click 1,170 Toilets Completed in Sundarbans (E. India) for photo's of April 2018 visit. Click Project Dignity Videos for new videos. Rotary District 6380 Newsletter, May 2018
