If need doesn't get you start working, shame will!!

Today I am feeling really ashamed of not only myself but also my country as a whole and I am sure you will too when you get to know that when you type 'sanitation in India' on Google, not a SINGLE positive thing  appears on your screen! 

"Drinking water supply and sanitation in India continue to be inadequate, despite longstanding efforts by the various levels of government and communities at improving coverage.....None of the 35 Indian cities with a population of more than one million distribute water for more than a few hours per day, despite generally sufficient infrastructure....Most Indians depend on on-site sanitation facilities.....The lack of adequate sanitation and safe water has significant negative health impacts including Diarrhea , referred to by travelers as the "Delhi Belly"......"

I mean how shameful can anything get!!!

Sanitation Drive

Today was a wonderful day! We had gone for a sanitation drive in a slum in Vasant Kunj.

We distributed clothes and biscuits, every thing went very smoothly.

We talked to the inhabitants of the slum about the importance of maintaining hygiene.

It was a great experience for all the 16 students that had gone there and all of us learnt alot from these people!

Paper Distribution Walk

Today (20/12/12) we had gone for a paper bag distribution walk to the C-Block market in Vasant Vihar.

 It was good to see that the shopkeepers were willing to take the bags and were already using them to!

 We also got a pledge signed saying that we will help in keeping Delhi safe and green.

 Even the customers were very happy with this step of ours.

It is time......

Planet earth is the place we call home, where we eat, drink, and breathe. The earth never stops moving and neither do we. We don’t stop to think, we don’t stop to stare at what we have done to our planet. Therefore it’s time to usher in a positive change, to give back what we have taken from the environment, and all it will take is effort.  Our parents are working hard to earn money so that they can leave with some fortune which will help us lead our lives comfortably. But can't we earn all this by putting some extra effort in future? What we will not be able to earn back is the natural resources which are relentlessly being wasted by their generation and whose wastage is just a puny matter for us right now. We discuss this matter sitting in air-conditioned houses and offices just the way we discuss world politics. Somewhere deep inside our hearts we all know that sitting there and talking like hypocrites will not help, but we hitch in taking the first step, we are scared from becoming the torch bearers. What we, through project H.E.A.L. want to do is remove this hitch. The aim is to bring about a paradoxical change in people attitude towards recycling, create green agents of change, to spread awareness about environmental responsibility. Recycling not only aids us to clean our environment but also help us to clean our conscious. We will be going to slums and talking to its inhabitants about the importance of sanitation in our lives, ensuring proper sanitation at our personal as well as school level, collecting tetra-packs for recycling, planting saplings, spreading awareness through street plays, conducting various activities in school and doing a lot more interesting activities.

Under this project one of our main objectives is to conduct a sanitation drive and for this we require a sensitized lot of people to support us. If you think that you are concerned enough and would like to be a part of this sanitation drive please let us know.

The problem is not the problem; the problem is your attitude about the problem

India has a population of almost 1.2 billion people. 55% of this population (nearly 600 million people) has no access to toilets. Most of these numbers are made up by people who live in urban slums and rural areas. A large populace in the rural areas still defecates in the open. Slum dwellers in major metropolitan cities, reside along railway tracks and have no access to toilets or a running supply of water. The situation in urban areas in terms of scale is not as serious as rural areas. However what escalates problems in urban areas is poor sewerage systems and highly congested living conditions.

Sewerage systems, if present at all, suffers from poor maintenance which often leads to overflow of raw sewage. Today, cities are highly populated. Over 20 cities have over a million residents, including the metropolises of Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata. In these places the existing sewerage systems, built to serve a population of around 3 million people, can’t handle the wastewater produced by an average of 12-14 million residents.What makes matters worse is that the existing infrastructure isn’t suited to cater to the needs of an exponentially growing population. Wastewater treatment facilities are inadequate- India neither has enough water to flush out city effluents, nor does it have enough sewage treatment plants. A report suggests that only 30% of India’s water is treated. The rest of the water makes its way into streams and rivers inducing another major problem-water pollution. According to the country’s tenth 5 year plan, 75% of India’s surface water resources are polluted and 80% of this is due to sewage alone.Needless to say this has a severe impact on human health. The water pollution aids the transmission of oral-fecal diseases like diarrhea and other intestinal infections such as round worm and hook worm. Diarrhea alone accounts for over 535,000 deaths in children under 5 years of age. Several malnutrition cases in children due to contaminated water have also been reported. Polluted water is also breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Mosquitoes, carriers of diseases like Malaria and Dengue fever are responsible for another 300,000 deaths in our country annually.In addition to health issues, poor sanitary measures set India back by billions of dollars every year. Illnesses are costly to families, and to the economy as a whole in terms of productivity losses and expenditures on medicines and health care. The economic repercussions are also evident in other areas like fisheries and tourism which are also hit by water related problems. As per World Bank statistics India’s nominal GDP stands at 1.3 Trillion dollars and we are currently ranked 11th in the world on basis of nominal GDP. If we could cut down expenses incurred due to illnesses and lack of productivity due to illnesses, our economy would get the impetus it needs to flourish even more. This in turn would enable governmental agencies to improve sanitation standards and medical infrastructure which would in turn help improve living standards of people. Overcoming the demons of poor sanitation and addressing health issues arising out of the same will surely help us become a global superpower in a holistic sense.

Introduction

Project H.E.A.L aims to raise awareness among the today's youth mainly teenagers and is not specific to the rich and the middle class but also aims to raise awareness among the people living in slums and don't have access or even knowledge about any environment friendly programs. The idea is to make our vicinity a cleaner and greener place to live in by inculcating hygienic habits in all sections of the society and making choices that would ensure the sustainability of the planet in the years to come. I strongly believe that sanitation is the key feature of any development in any area. I think that introducing the concept of sanitation in slums in necessary because only if the people living here are healthy will they be able to add to the work force and eventually the economic development of our country. Our plan is to first discuss, aware and educate the people around and once the awareness is there at the school level, we will together carry forward this program to a much larger target beneficiaries. I hope that our endeavors bring fruitful results!!!