Last week I had the opportunity to tour and meet with people from Sulabh, an organization based in Delhi that deals with sanitation work. They are known for their International Museum of Toilets which is included on many lists of odd museums in the world. Like the organization I work for, Sulabh does have some work that deals with manual scavenging. I went to Sulabh with the other SKA intern who is also from America and a coworker from SKA who had deeper insights regarding the manual scavenging world.
The first part of the visit involved a reception by the members of the organization. We were presented with scarves and introduced to the organization. Next we toured the school run by Sulabh. 60 percent of the students who attend the school are children of former manual scavengers. Since school is out for vacation, the only attendees of the school currently are girls being trained in technical skills such as sewing and fashion design. This aspect of the tour provided some interesting context for my research project.
Next we went and looked at some of the toilet solutions Sulabh had come up with in order to avoid manual scavenging. At this point, our tour guide went more into depth about what manual scavenging was. Myself and the other people from SKA had not told anyone at Sulabh that we were connected to SKA so they were unaware of our knowledge about the issue. At this point, my colleague from SKA asked straight up if manual scavenging still existed. Our tour guide responded with “no”. This encounter showed me why demonstrations and raising awareness is such a major part of SKA’s work. Even people and organizations who claim to be helping the movement refuse to claim that manual scavenging is still an issue that affects people in India. Within five minutes of leaving Sulabh, we came upon 3 men working in the street. 1 of them stood chest deep in a storm drain shoveling out waste. This practice is considered manual scavenging according to the law passed by India’s government. It was extremely ironic that we had just been told that manual scavenging did not exist yet the practice was actively occurring right outside the doors of the organization.