Clean India was perhaps my first encounter with Design Thinking Processes a time when I wouldn't have even known that term. In 2013, as 8th-9th graders, my partner Shreya and I were selected for the Khemka Foundations TGELF Youth Leader Program through which we went step by step from researching and identifying an issue in our region, prepared a project proposal, taking workshops and surveys to raising funds to build compost toilets in Tiddha village on the outskirts of Chandigarh.
In retrospect, as I now enter my last year in design school, this is a project I am both extremely critical and proud of. All the same, its successes and failures have been crucial in shaping my perspective and design methodology.
Once the four toilets were built, we were deciding which side the male and female signages would go. To this a village lady replied, " Then the toilets will never be clean! They should be divided among the 20 families here." She was right. Public Toilets, anonymous in their nature, assumed there to be a cleaner employed to clean after you. There needed to be a sense of ownership attached to the toilets for this to work. Remarkable cultural insight from that lady, I still quote till date.
Project: Clean India: Eradicating Open Defecation
Lead by: Mrinalini Singha & Shreya Bali
In Collaboration with: Strawberry Fields World School, Khemka Foundation, HEART Foundation & Sulabh Sauchalya
