Indians used to melas of all kinds would now have a new mela coming to their state every year for the next four years at least. This one is brought to you by the Government alongwith the German NGO Wash United.
Its founder and executive director Thorstun Kiustur says that the new mela or the Yatra that he was bringing to India free of cost was about cleanliness and hygiene but with all the excitement and colour associated with traditional melas.
We are harnessing cultural paradigms, working with film stars and cricket players to draw the attention of the media which will then take the message to the people, says Kiustur.
In its first mela which it is planning as a pilot and as a toolkit for sanitation, comparable to the Community Led Total Sanitation approach, he says that they would cover five states and stop in each state once for ten days each. These include Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.
Kiustur who plans multiple yatras in the coming four years, says the Rural Development Ministry does not spend anything on the yatra as it is funded totally by the Swiss Government and the Bill and Milinda Gates Foundation.
The carnival complements another approach, the CLTS that is being adopted in various states like Maharashtra through which it would pass.
Under CLTS, the community is made to think differently through groups of change agents created within the community itself. The people are made to feel shame and fear about not using toilets.The Wash approach of a carnival to push sanitation through media is totally unlike the CLTS which does not use mass media to reach the people.
The carnival or Yatra would half in each state once for ten days each. We see the yatra as an innovative way to get to media. CLTS is not distributed throught media. Here we are creating a platform that can be taken through the media to people, he says.
He says when successful and famous people give messages about using toilets and menstrual hygiene, it would motivate people to adopt it as they are not talking just about diseases but about modernity and better living, says Kiustur.
He believes that the 626 million people who practise open defecation, 100 million less than those who use mobile phones, would definitely be moved by the new format of messages.We dont want to harp on the fact that washing hands reduces risk of diarrhoea by half. We want to say that we muse use toilets as we are modern, he says
About 20 games have been developed by Wash United to help visitors to the Yatra to learn about sanitation through games like carroms, snakes and ladders and other known games.
They expect one lakh visitors at all the five yatra destinations while 35000 are expected to be reached through school visits. The media is expected to reach another 100 million.
The yatra or journey is to last 50 days and would also include a component on menstrual hygiene. The big rationale for us is that India recognises sanitation as a human right. We are only trying to get people to access their own rights.
