300 Mumbai Students Worked Every Sunday for 2 Years & Gifted 107 Toilets to a Village!

Students of Kishinchand Chellaram (KC) College in Mumbai have constructed 107 toilets in the village of Karvale in Maharashtra to help it become Open Defecation Free.

In 2005, the NSS unit conducted a camp in Karvale village to build one toilet for a school. None of the families in the village had a toilet and it was upon visiting the village that the students realized the gravity of the issue –they then decided to extend the project.

“To us, for whom it is obvious to have a toilet in the house, the plight of the villagers without any access to toilets was beyond imagination.Girls and women in the Karvale village had no choice but to get up at dawn or to wait until night to answer nature’s calls. Many girls dropped out of school after they started menstruation because of the unavailability of toilets,” says Simran Brijwani, NSS volunteer & student of KC College.

After gaining the trust of the villagers through frequent visits, the volunteers started spreading awareness about the importance of sanitation and hygiene among villagers. In the beginning, the response was slow, but gradually, they were able to make the villagers understand the importance of having a toilet in their house.

The students then decided to provide better sanitation facilities for the villagers and make the village ODF. The initiative picked up pace in 2015 and the students constructed 49 toilets that year. In 2016, over 300 student volunteers constructed 67 toilets in the village to reach the target under the guidance of NSS programme officer Dr. Satish Kolte.