Dear all,

I am posting this on behalf of Akhila Sivadas, Centre for Advocacy and Research. Apologies for the oversight.

The Department of School Education and Literacy, Government of India took this innovative activities viz. to form Child Cabinet at school in a meeting that was held on March 12, 2012.
Child Cabinet is a platform for children where they can discuss and address issues related to every child’s right to basic education, health and overall development. It remains an open democratic forum where they can share their ideas and issues for overall school development and management and plan for designing their school as safe, clean and joyful place. They also acquire skill related to leadership, decision making, effective communication and holistic development.
The cabinet consists of several Ministries including Pradhan Mantri, Shiksha Mantri, Swasthya Mantri, Krida Mantri & Sanskritik Mantri, Khadda (Food) Mantri.
Every ministry has different responsibilities.
Swasthya Mantrak (Health Ministry)
 Maintaining overall School Hygiene,
 Monitoring availability of drinking water, water & soap facility and litterbin at toilet,
 Cleanliness of toilet and surroundings,
 Proper disposal of napkin at incinerator (where incinerator available) or regular disposal of litterbin of toilet,
 Availability of napkin at school,
 Monitoring personal hygiene of students,
 Looking after sick students and taking necessary steps in case of emergency,
 Monitoring availability of medicine at school
Khidra & Sanskritik Mantrak (Cultural Ministry)-
 Observation of important days e.g. Toilet Day, Global Hand Washing Day, Menstrual Hygiene Day, Nutrition Week,
 Organise sports at school
Shiksha Mantrak (Education Minstry)-
 Through our MHM classes at school we are orienting students on menstrual hygiene management. After completion of our intervention this Ministry will carry out information and knowledge on MHM which they have learnt.
 Conduct awareness camp with involving teachers/ community/ NGOs.
Khadda (Food) Mantri-
 Monitoring cooking process (Mid Day Meal)
 Monitoring washing vegetables and utensils before cutting and washing hands before cooking,
 Cleanliness of kitchen
During our MHM intervention we noticed that though formation of Child Cabinet at school is mandatory but in few schools child cabinet exist and where the formation process has been done it is not functioning at all. We decided to strengthen the ministries to sustain our intervention on Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) and WSH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene).
We are presently intervening in 21 schools with MHM messages. To sustain the discussion we are concentrating on formation/ reformation and strengthening the Child Cabinet. Till now we have reached 5357 students in seventeen schools and have reformed and strengthened 13 cabinets consisting of 718 members. As part of our MHM intervention we are conducting four sessions to orient and strengthen Child Cabinet about their responsibilities and cater their function.
Child cabinet which has ministers like health minister, education minister, environment minister, reporter, discipline etc is making students to develop the decision making process and to decide on the issue and explore solutions of problems.

Story From Kusumba High School.
As a part of our intervention on WSH (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), we felt the necessity to impart life skills and understanding related to menstrual hygiene management in a sensitive and supportive manner and also encourage and support girls during menstruation so they do not miss school. This involved menstrual hygiene education sessions at school, along with steps to ensure that girls have a private place to wash and change their clothes and proper WSH facilities at school premises.
Initially we discussed with Principals of several schools and proposed to them to start MHM intervention and got permission from Kusumba High School and Green Park Siksha Sadan School.
We focused our discussions on both MHM and WSH issues. We discussed about the better provisioning of toilets, facilities for hand washing with soap in toilet, drinking water facilities and side by side emphasized on activities that promoted safe menstrual practices.
During the course of our intervention a group of students, both boys and girls, formed “Sanitation Club” (now known as Child Cabinet). These micro organisations planned and improved the environs of the school through their effort and leadership. They realized their full potential as “Change Agent”.
The students of Kusumba School divided them into three groups, viz, sanitation group, mid-day meal monitoring group and personal hygiene maintenance group. Each group consisted of 18 to 20 students.
Sanitation group promoted cleanliness and hygiene of the school. To do so they organised School Sanitation Campaign by involving all the students, teachers, non- teaching staff, Mid-Day meal workers. It was observed that their leadership inspired parents and School Management Committee (SMC) members who also took active part in School Sanitation Campaign. The neighbourhood joined the campaign and provided broom, spade, and bucket and took part in cleaning surroundings of the school.
Mid-day Meal Monitoring Group strengthened the hygiene consciousness of the team and through them the kitchen as well as overall cleanliness of the kitchen.
Personal Hygiene Maintenance Group regularly strengthened the hygiene awareness of students like cutting nail, wearing clean uniform, washing hands and dishes before taking food and safe disposal of waste at dustbin instead of strewing it around.
While checking the facilities, the Sanitation group decided to improve the facilities such as availability of water and litterbin at toilet, set right broken and damaged doors. They talked among themselves and prepared an application requesting the SMC to provide all those facilities at school. The School Secretary said that, “You have no need to place the application. Give us a week; we will try our best to solve the problems”. Mala, student of Class IX said that, “within a week SMC provided all those things we mentioned in application.” The Sanitation Group members then requisitioned for waste paper basket and installed basket in each section to prevent littering.
They also noticed the chaos that happened every day during mid day meal. The group started making queue before kitchen on first come first serve basis. Till now they are sustaining the process.
The Sanitation Club members noticed that few students took admission but after a month they dropped out. Few concerned members of Sanitation Club went their homes and found out that that due to financial crisis their parents were not able to provide books; as a result the students stopped studying. Then they decided to take up the issue in their meeting, discussed problem with all the students and took decision to create “Book Bank”. They started to donate their books after getting promoted.

Experience Sharing - Harimati School, Garia-
During MHM intervention in Harimati School Disha Majumder, student of class IX expressed their concern on sustenance of the intervention. They asked “after completing sessions on MHM if have something to know related to these issues or we face any physical problem whom do we ask?”
Baisakhi Pal, a fellow student suggested that, “we can open a Facebook Page where we will include others schools also”. In fact, she went on to state that from every school the students who are involved in Child Cabinet will share on facebook their activities, innovations, plan, and success story so that they get inspired and infused with new ideas”. Rijiya Khatun, suggested that, ”we include a list of doctors from whom the students can get medical and health advise”. They decided to name it as the “Page for Change Agents”.
Experience Sharing- Nabatara High School, Subhas Gram-
There are few schools with more than 1500 children enrolled in it. In these institutions, due to the lack of a big room we were unable to include all the students in MHM sessions. Nabatara is one of those schools. We shared our concern with Principals and Secretary of SMC. They asked us to include only the members of the Child Cabinet. We agreed and began the intervention. On one occasion Sabina Khatun, member of Cultural Ministry told us that many students were very inquisitive about what was happening in these sessions so “one day I shared with them what I heard and learned about”. Then she wanted to know whether is it possible to do something for them. On the next day t was decided that as a member of Child Cabinet it was their responsibility to share their learning with all the other students. Jhuma Mondal, member of Education Ministry then planned that with Child Cabinet consisting of 50 students, if every member takes session with 25 other students, then they could spread the messages on MHM with every student. These members have prepared IEC, have written slogan on WSH issues.

Hello everybody,

Please respond to the discussion that is on innovations in WASH in Schools. This topic closes tomorrow, 8 September. We are looking for case studies

Regards
Nitya

We use glass fibre waste dumped by wind mill blade manufacturing companies and convert them into making toilets. The advantages are that we do not need nature eroding sand, water or cement but reuse and recycle the glass fibre waste from which we make the toilet. Again, the model is skill building and making rural folk do their own toilets wherein we provide mould, material and know how, so that one toilet can be built in one days time! (www.watsan.in/modular_toilets.html)

Dear all,

This has been interesting. Can I ask you to share more innovations, as that is the topic of the discussion. Processes, technology, behaviour change or menstrual hygiene examples will be welcome.
Thank you
Nitya

Dear Members,

I am sharing an example that was sent to the Secretariat by Ravi Senji of RaVikas.

regards
Aloka
(on behalf of SuSanA Secretariat)

---

Dear SUSANA Team,

Greetings,

I am Ravi Senji, Founderpreneur of RaVikas.

The first Solar based (Zero flush/Zero odor/Zero waste) Return on investment Toilet units (MAITRI) designed exclusively for India is my patented product

My toilets do not flush water after use/ remain odor free and convert human waste into vermicast (not compost)

This is the only unit which can accept used sanitary napkins and safely process them as well.

I have installed a UDDT for public use in a temple near Vellore (100 Kms from Chennai) which is functional till today serving @ 70~90 users each day.

Kindly visit my website www.swachhsolartoilet.com for details.

I am interested to actively participate in the WINs program.

Let know if you are interested and way ahead

Thank you

RaviSenji

09789984730

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.swachhsolartoilet.com

Details can be seen in www.watsan.in
Mail to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mobile 9445104576

Hi
Can you post some details of your water filters?
Regards
Sunetra

Sure, will be in touch
Cheers
My local # for your Indian friends: +91 9445104576

Of course. Can you remind me in a couple of weeks so they can focus on getting this project over the line and then they will have a little more clear space to discuss collaborations..

Dear Sir,
Very exciting to see the results of your great work in Cuddalore and eventually you'll do it in Mumbai. Can you share the connects / contact details of your persons in both Tamilnadu and Mumbai so that we can see if we can collaborate and so things together? Thanks in advance
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Hello everybody. A good start to this topic.

As some will know we have built approximately 80 toilet blocks mainly in Tamil Nadu (Cuddalore District). This means circa 35,000 school children now have access to sustainable sanitation facilities. In the broadest of terms we allow 20 urinals for girls and 30 for boys, but only allow one or two UDDTs for defecation. This is because we have found that few children use the toilets for defecation, but all use them for urination. More urinals means no queuing at break time, which is a big issue at many schools I have visited where new toilets have been constructed. As they are UDDTs there is no smell, which the children like, and we collect both the solids and liquids to be used as fertiliser. There are two blocks (boys and girls) and, as you can see in the attached photo, to the right, there is an included room for girls to change sanitary towels and an incinerator facility for safe disposal. The pupils are engaged and motivated to use the facilities and within a very short time we have many requests for family ecosan (UDDT) units in the respective villages. We consider this is an excellent form of family 'pressure' and the best possible outcome.

The attached photo is in Vadalur, Cuddalore, and caters for about 600 girls and was completed about three months ago. We try to make our units bright and colourful so there is a greater desire to use them. The school looks after cleaning and maintenance.

We are starting our first unit in Mumbai (Malvani) once the rains finish. We are also expecting an agreement with Corporation of Chennai regarding slum community sanitation to be announced in the next week, and then we will start looking at facilities within Chennai itself.

We don't build cheap, we don't build pit toilets (ever) and we focus only on UDDTs. Our units are well built, are often of a bespoke design and are constructed to last for thirty years.

I am happy to answer any questions and, if I cannot answer them, our excellent Indian team will be able to.

Sure. My email ID This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Let's do it!