Joe Madiath: Better toilets, better life

46,144 views ・ 2015-01-22

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It is very fashionable and proper to speak about food
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in all its forms, all its colors, aromas and tastes.
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But after the food goes through the digestive system,
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when it is thrown out as crap,
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it is no longer fashionable to speak about it.
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It is rather revolting.
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I'm a guy who has graduated from bullshit to full-shit.
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(Laughter)
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My organization, Gram Vikas, which means "village development organization,"
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was working in the area of renewable energy.
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On the most part, we were producing biogas,
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biogas for rural kitchens.
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We produce biogas in India by using animal manure,
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which usually, in India, is called cow dung.
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But as the gender-sensitive person that I am,
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I would like to call it bullshit.
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But realizing later on
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how important were sanitation and the disposal of crap in a proper way,
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we went into the arena of sanitation.
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Eighty percent of all diseases in India and most developing countries
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are because of poor quality water.
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And when we look at the reason for poor quality water,
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you find that it is our abysmal attitude to the disposal of human waste.
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Human waste, in its rawest form,
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finds its way back to drinking water, bathing water, washing water,
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irrigation water, whatever water you see.
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And this is the cause for 80 percent of the diseases in rural areas.
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In India, it is unfortunately only the women who carry water.
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So for all domestic needs, women have to carry water.
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So that is a pitiable state of affairs.
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Open defecation is rampant.
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Seventy percent of India defecates in the open.
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They sit there out in the open,
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with the wind on their sails,
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hiding their faces, exposing their bases,
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and sitting there in pristine glory --
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70 percent of India.
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And if you look at the world total,
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60 percent of all the crap that is thrown into the open is by Indians.
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A fantastic distinction.
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I don't know if we Indians can be proud of such a distinction.
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(Laughter)
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So we, together with a lot of villages,
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we began to talk about how to really address this situation of sanitation.
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And we came together and formed a project called MANTRA.
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MANTRA stands for Movement and Action Network for Transformation of Rural Areas.
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So we are speaking about transformation, transformation in rural areas.
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Villages that agree to implement this project,
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they organize a legal society
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where the general body consists of all members
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who elect a group of men and women who implement the project
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and, later on, who look after the operation and maintenance.
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They decide to build a toilet and a shower room.
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And from a protected water source,
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water will be brought to an elevated water reservoir and piped to all households
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through three taps:
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one in the toilet, one in the shower, one in the kitchen, 24 hours a day.
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The pity is that our cities, like New Delhi and Bombay,
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do not have a 24-hour water supply.
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But in these villages, we want to have it.
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There is a distinct difference in the quality.
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Well in India, we have a theory, which is very much accepted
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by the government bureaucracy and all those who matter,
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that poor people deserve poor solutions
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and absolutely poor people deserve pathetic solutions.
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This, combined with a Nobel Prize-worthy theory that
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the cheapest is the most economic,
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is the heady cocktail that the poor are forced to drink.
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We are fighting against this.
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We feel that the poor have been humiliated for centuries.
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And even in sanitation,
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they should not be humiliated.
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Sanitation is more about dignity
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than about human disposal of waste.
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And so you build these toilets and very often,
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we have to hear that the toilets are better than their houses.
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And you can see that in front are the attached houses
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and the others are the toilets.
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So these people, without a single exception of a family in a village,
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decide to build a toilet, a bathing room.
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And for that, they come together, collect all the local materials --
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local materials like rubble, sand, aggregates,
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usually a government subsidy is available
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to meet at least part of the cost of external materials
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like cement, steel, toilet commode.
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And they build a toilet and a bathing room.
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Also, all the unskilled laborers, that is daily wage earners, mostly landless,
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are given an opportunity to be trained as masons and plumbers.
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So while these people are being trained, others are collecting the materials.
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And when both are ready, they build a toilet, a shower room,
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and of course also a water tower, an elevated water reservoir.
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We use a system of two leach pits to treat the waste.
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From the toilet, the muck comes into the first leach pit.
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And when it is full, it is blocked and it can go to the next.
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But we discovered that if you plant banana trees, papaya trees
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on the periphery of these leach pits,
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they grow very well because they suck up all the nutrients
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and you get very tasty bananas, papayas.
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If any of you come to my place,
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I would be happy to share these bananas and papayas with you.
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So there you can see the completed toilets, the water towers.
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This is in a village where most of the people are even illiterate.
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It is always a 24-hour water supply
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because water gets polluted very often when you store it --
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a child dips his or her hand into it, something falls into it.
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So no water is stored. It's always on tap.
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This is how an elevated water reservoir is constructed.
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And that is the end product.
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Because it has to go high, and there is some space available,
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two or three rooms are made under the water tower,
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which are used by the village for different committee meetings.
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We have had clear evidence of the great impact of this program.
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Before we started, there were, as usual,
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more than 80 percent of people suffering from waterborne diseases.
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But after this, we have empirical evidence that 82 percent, on average,
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among all these villages -- 1,200 villages have completed it --
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waterborne diseases have come down 82 percent.
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09:23
(Applause)
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Women usually used to spend, especially in the summer months,
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about six to seven hours a day carrying water.
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And when they went to carry water,
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because, as I said earlier, it's only women who carry water,
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they used to take their little children, girl children, also to carry water,
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or else to be back at home to look after the siblings.
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So there were less than nine percent of girl children attending school,
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even if there was a school.
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And boys, about 30 percent.
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But girls, it has gone to about 90 percent and boys, almost to 100 percent.
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(Applause)
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The most vulnerable section in a village
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are the landless laborers who are the daily wage-earners.
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Because they have gone through this training
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to be masons and plumbers and bar benders,
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now their ability to earn has increased 300 to 400 percent.
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So this is a democracy in action
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because there is a general body, a governing board, the committee.
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People are questioning, people are governing themselves,
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people are learning to manage their own affairs,
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they are taking their own futures into their hands.
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And that is democracy at the grassroots level in action.
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More than 1,200 villages have so far done this.
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It benefits over 400,000 people and it's still going on.
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And I hope it continues to move ahead.
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For India and such developing countries,
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armies and armaments,
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software companies and spaceships
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may not be as important as taps and toilets.
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Thank you. Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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