Let's Connect For A Cause: April 2015

It was March 2014 I suppose; I was discussing my new goal of joining a NGO where I could work in volunteering capacity with few of my friends. We searched for NGOs that we could join on the net and I stumbled upon Citizens Association for Child Rights. We contacted Dr.Richa Singh, who explained the working of the organization, the need for more volunteers as well as of people who could spread the word through the net and I was hooked.

The truth is that I never gave any thought to the plight of children who were not as privileged as me or the people I interacted on a daily basis. I volunteered to work for the organization by going to schools and spending 2 to 3 hours to teach the students basic computer courses. However, I soon realized that I was more interested in spreading the word about this organization via my writing skills. I contacted Dr. Richa and she appointed me as a volunteer in maintaining the blog.

How to get in touch with CACR

Writing and editing the blog posts was a major exposure for me. The experiences shared by the volunteers told a horrific story of neglect suffered by the children in our country. We shared these stories on the blog which garnered an impressive response. However, it was not enough. The fight is to change the condition of children all over the country; we had to reach a larger audience to make a significant change. We decided to change the look of the blog and the technical team played a major role in that endeavor. Guest writers played a crucial role in branching out and spreading the information to a larger audience.

I did not have a history of working with NGOs but CACR gave me a strong platform to help the organization spread awareness about its cause with my talents from day one. I understood the various fields in which we could help our society and the rising need for the efforts to make it a better place. It also brought in sharp focus the fact that for uplifting each section of the society it is necessary that the whole society works as a single body. For this the citizens need to know the problems faced by the various sections, and hence spreading knowledge about it is equally important as making efforts to solve the problems.

CACR. The team working for is efficient in planning as well as execution of events and plans. The smiling faces of hundreds of children are a mark of their efforts and the milestones that this organization that CACR has achieved.Writing has become my passion and I am actively aware of the society I live in. This has been the gift of joining CACR. It has given me the incentive to fight for the deprived classes and to make the country we inhabit a better place to live.
Working with an NGO can be a frustrating experience if the organization is not organized to meet the demands. I am proud to say that I faced no such qualms while working for

-by +KAVISHA SHAH is a engineer by profession who loves to blog and volunteer with +Citizens Association For Child Rights
website : www.ngocacr.com

Images : https://instagram.com/p/1j8KUTG2Rh/

Did you know that more than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation and hygiene- related issues? Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most move to informal settlements like slums with access to no sanitation facilities. 780 million people lack access to an improved water source.

Importance of Clean water and Sanitation

Three things most of today’s world’s population cannot do:

Take a hot shower,

Get access to clean water,

Flush away last night’s dinner.

Today a greater number of people have a mobile phone than a toilet. Shocking, isn’t it?

In the year 2013, my school celebrated the United Nations World Water Day. As the survey head of the project, my team and I visited slums, residential and corporate complexes, a children’s hospital and an agricultural fair to understand the water problems these sectors were facing. Out of all the others, my visit to the various slums of Mumbai exposed me to a side of my city that I had never seen before. Open sewage channels ran along the length of the narrow lanes, with houses so close to each other that there was hardly any space to walk. The repulsive stench emerging from these channels made me feel a little nauseous. It surprised me how the residents of the slums were totally oblivious to it. When I told them how unhygienic it was to have an open sewage right outside their house, they said, ‘ये तोह चलता है ’, - This is completely fine. The concept of sanitation and hygiene was miles away from them. This experience made me realize that there is a dire need for awareness within the people.

In the midst of several pressing issues like corruption, human trafficking, the economic crisis, terrorism, etc. India may have lost focus on something as basic as water and sanitation. As Mahatma Gandhi once rightly said, ‘Sanitation is more important than independence’. Inadequate sanitation and hygiene is a major cause of diseases worldwide.I believe that sanitation is a noble and important mission for this nation.

The existence of such sanitation and hygiene issues in India is due to India’s huge and growing population, which is putting a severe strain on all of the country’s natural resources. Statistically speaking, majority of the water sources are contaminated by sewage and agricultural runoff. On a brighter side, India seems to have made some progress in the supply of safe water to its people, but there persists to be a gross disparity in coverage across the country. In India, diarrhea alone causes more than 1,600 deaths daily. What is lacking in this nation is awareness and education. I strongly support the fact that only awareness and education can take us a step forward towards either alleviating or even as far as eradicating several problems faced by us today.

Sanitation is the basic human right. Then why are women in particular going through a major sanitation crisis? Why do women have to walk miles to fetch water, in turn giving up on their right to education? Why do women struggle most from the lack of adequate sanitation? In many countries, women are not permitted to relieve themselves during the day. This has a major impact on the health of the women, risking the accumulation of toxins in their blood stream.

Sanitation is a human right

About half of all girls worldwide attend schools without toilets. The lack of privacy causes many girls to drop out when they reach puberty.The question I want to ask here is- why this discrimination? Sanitation is essential for one and all, whether a man or a woman. An increase in the sanitation and hygiene access of women can lead to several positives. Increase access leads to an increase in the rate of education of girls, improved health for women and girls, reduced child and mother mortality rates, reduction in any form of physiological injury, increase in the status quo of women and also provision of new employment opportunities of women.

But a lack of access and the dual aspects of the water crisis – lack of water and of sanitation – lock women in a cycle of poverty.The water crisis is interlinked with the sanitation and hygiene concern prevalent in the world. Water is a scarce resource, which has become a source of conflict, instead of being a catalyst of building new connections. Sanitation and hygiene can be tackled by increased awareness and equality. Educating women about can indirectly lead to educating thousands of other individuals.

At CACR we screened short animation films on the necessity of hygiene and sanitation during the cleanliness week in municipal schools of Mumbai. After the screening lot of parents and students asked us questions on proper ways to store water in their houses, use disinfectants to keep their toilets and houses germ free and improve their health by various hand-washing techniques.As a organization working to promote education and health in school going kids , we remain committed to awareness creation on pertinent issues like clean water and sanitation, hygiene -WASH.

So please join hands with us to do your bit by becoming a change agent to promote healthy living.