When Rinku Kumari, 33, started visiting villages in Bihar’s Nalanda district to motivate people to build toilets, she realised it was no easy task. But even more difficult was to convince them to use those toilets.
It took a map and some simple psychology to change an age-old habit. “Using colour codes, I would ask them to mark the places where they would go to ease themselves in yellow and the map would be dotted with yellow all over. The splashes made them feel ashamed and they would request me not to make the map public,” says Rinku, a bangle maker, who adds that she has been able to make 10 villages open-defecation free.
Rinku is a swachhagrahi activist. Hundreds of volunteers shared similar experiences as they assembled at Champaran earlier this week to commemorate the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha.
Read more of such experiences in a report by Dipak Dash published in The Times of India...
