Gramalaya

Trichy is home to Scope and Gramalaya (and another I didn't visit), leading organizations in sanitation in India. Maybe for this reason, Water.org set up its India field office here. (Rumor has it is leaving).

Here are glimpses from a visit to Gramalaya's urban work and also its rural training center.

An experienced field worker of Gramalaya facilitates an exposure visit of one of the community-managed toilets they helped set up. The visitors were women from a coastal community tasked with setting up their own community toilet.

This community toilet and shower is held up as a top example around the world of community ownership of maintaining their own facilities. This is their handwash station. The pipe hasn't carried water for awhile they said.

So they sent this woman to pour water for me to wash my hands.

After some of there community toilets we visited an urban slum area, and here is a shot of a typical entryway where the mother does all her washing and cooking. There is a standard hole in the wall (behind the curtain) that was often used for storing soap.

The sign alludes to a history of 'advanced' sanitation (eco-san) in south India some 400 years ago. Trichy today, has a river bed causing a high water table around it. For this reason, local NGOs have been able to apply for projects to promote eco-san in these communities since pit latrines cannot be dug. 20 years later they have had very limited success despite heavy funding from the outside.

A view of Gramalaya's latrine display center. Notice the latrine's roof at the bottom "Impossible is the Untried"