Mumbai was not unfamiliar to me. I always knew Mumbai for its vadapav, city of dreams , Bollywood , population , slums, notorious traffic jams and local trains. I shifted to Mumbai post marriage and it was within months that Mumbai adopted me as her daughter. I loved being one among the millions of Mumbaikars !!
Local train journeys were an excellent part , with which I experienced my Mumbai life every morning travelling for 2 and a half hours. Along the railway lines , road sides , back of the shops , I see many people performing their daily ” morning business ” in the open.
As time passed by , like any other Mumbaikar , I got used to this scene but the question of sanitation and toilets in their house always haunted me. As I read about this , even urban cities like Bangalore have about 34,000 households without toilets. Shocking isn’t, but this is the truth. On 19th November 2013 World Bank reported that 53% Indian households defecate in open !!
Defecating in the open is the main cause for easy spread of diseases like Cholera , Typhoid, Diarrhoea etc. According to WHO , worldwide 88% of diarrhoea is attributed to inadequate sanitation and hygiene. It is our sole duty to convey the message of proper sanitation , health and hygiene to our children.
The Unilever Foundation have joined hands with Domestos to provide basic sanitation access by standing up for UNICEF’s Community Approaches to Total Sanitation (CATS) programme.
OBJECTIVES OF CATS PROGRAMME
- Aims to promote good hygiene practices
- Creating demands for access to toilets
- Building up awareness of sanitation crisis
They have come up with an awareness video which is shown above . You can lend your hands in promoting the proper sanitation awareness by sharing this video and supporting this campaign.
NOTE : This post has been sponsored by Unilever Foundation, but all thoughts are my own.
