Red Cross International Hero

 

On Thursday, March 29, the Red Cross held a luncheon for local "everyday heros." Some of the featured people were: a scout saving a man in a snowmobiling accident; ; a kid who saved his friend injured by a ski-boat propeller; a woman who performed life-saving CPR; a WWII vet; and finally...a kid who built toilets in India?? Yes, I was certainly the odd one of the bunch. I didn't directly save anyone's life, but stop and think what life would be like if you didn't have a toilet. So I guess my Soilet-building was heroic. Click on the pic above to check out the video.

The Indian Soilet Conference

On my last full day in India, we organized the Indian Soilet Conference to cap off everything we did in India. The goal was to pass on the Soilet's success to local organizations. So we had 16 organizations meet at a random church in the slum where all the Soilets were being built. We started with a powerpoint presentation about  Soilets and then walked down the road so they could behold the actual Soilets. Many of these organizations were skeptical about the whole thing (worms eating human waste???) until they saw it with their own eyes.  On one of the Soilets, I opened up the lid of the box, put on a latex glove, and grabbed a handful of worm-rich dirt. Amazingly it didn't even smell. There were plenty of "oos" and "aws"as they saw these waste-eating worms solving one of India's major sanitation issues. The conference was a success! And many of the organizations came out of the conference wanting to build their own Indian Soilet. 

Passing it on: Training Local Workers

Yes, it took us awhile to become confident in building Soilets ourselves, but once we did, we focussed on training. Our partner organization helped us identify four people in the community that would be interested in leaving their daily labors to build some Soilets. We would show them exactly what needed to be done and then we let them build it. It was kind of nice. It was like I got promoted from the laborer working down in the hole to the Supervisor who would just stand up top and nod his head and point his fingers every once in awhile. But not having to hold the shovel wasn't what was making me happy. It put a huge smile on my face to see local Indians building the Soilet independant of us. I was beginning to see a vision of the future of Soilets. So, as you can see, I have a huge smile on my face as I stand next to my Soilet building crew, standing in from of the first Soilet to be completely built by Indians.

The Second Soilet: Perfecting the Design to make it Indian-Friendly

We're getting better at this Soilet-building business. On this second one we are trying to make it Indian friendly, which means cutting down the cost and using materials that are more accessible. In the above picture you can see that it is no longer a brick box but a circular ring. These concrete rings are about a foot high and a meter in diameter, they are made right in the community and cost only 170 rupees or $3.78  per ring! So this movement from box to circle drops the cost from $130 (6000 rupees) to $80 (3600 rupees). We're kind of excited about this because it's pretty dang affordable.

How much would you pay for a self-disposing toilet ?

300+ Indian Families will now have Water

So we have been doing a little more than just Soilets in the slum community. When we first came to the community to present Soilets, an adjacent community told us that they wished they could have water. They relied on a truck to come every once in a while so they could purchase water by the jug. My good friend Brandon decided to take the initiative to give these people something they just couldn't obtain by themselves. We have a plan set up so the community contributes as much as they possibly can (which may be only four or five US dollars per family) and then we use our project funds for the rest. We were taking a few chances, however. For example, many times even after proper inspection, the drilling still comes out dry and you still have to pay the drill company. We were very fortunate: at 70 feet we hit water, at 150 feet it was flowing at a constant pressure (as you can see in the picture), and they finished the drilling at 275 feet. Everyone in the community was so happy. It will be awhile before the well is usable with a working pump, but even in the last few days, people have been stopping us as we pass through to tell us how grateful they are. After the drilling, I told myself that even if all of the other projects in India were to fall through, hundreds of people will now have water.

The Giant Drill Truck

We're Famous!

Our trip to Kowdipally a few weeks ago made it into the village newspaper. I guess we must be the only white people that they've seen for years. You can't see it in the picture, but something like 100 people formed a circle around us just staring. I am yet to find out what they actually wrote about us.... 

Day 9: Sanitation vs. Superstition

Why is this taking so long? Well, its the first Indian Soilet and getting materials is not as easy as running over to Home Depot. So the three barriers today were: (1)The worms at the vermi-culture place will have to wait one more day. (2) We didn't decide we wanted to hire a mason for the bathroom wall until 1:30 pm. The mason agreed to do a half days of labor, but apparently starting at one 1:30 is too late for a half day of labor???? so he will be there tomorrow morning. Before I explain the third daily barrier, let me orient you. The wall is on the north side of the Soilet. Before building, we informed the lady of the household that we would be having steps leading up to  a door to the bathroom on the south side of the toilet. Well, today she told us that (based on superstitious belief), the door needs to be on the east side of the toilet. That, as you can see, is the side that at this moment drops right down into the hole in the box. We will of course cover this with a lid, but it will in no way be weight bearing. We let her know that she can have the door on the south side opposite of the wall or even on the west side facing the road, but there is no way we can do the door on the east side. But she wasn't satisfied. So we're leaving it up to a lady in our partner NGO to talk her through on this one. If she doesn't budge, I'll have to be creative in making a bathroom wall that just doesn't have a door, like a mini tent with a curtain all around....

Day 7-8: A 400 lb Gorilla in the shape of a bathroom floor...

This is us saying: "How the heck are we gonna get that up here?" We calculated that the slab would weigh about 400 lbs and the plan was to get it on top of the Soilet box.....

Let's see: thats 1...2...3...4..5 people to get it on there. One false move and our plans and the toilet bowl would be shattered.

Day 5-6: Wood that's made of Stone

A lot of materials are cheap in India: Cement, gravel, sand, bricks. But for some reason, wood (of all things!) is relatively expensive. So with some bargaining we finally got some wood for concrete frames along with some nails. When we started hammering into this wood, we realized that this isn't your American 2x4 semi-soft wood. The wood was hard and the nails were soft and it took 20 minutes before we could get a nail to penetrate the other side of the wood. We gave that up, and, as you can see, we were resourceful and used the heavy bricks as support.

And this is porous concrete. It's basically just gravel, cement, and water and works as a type of filter inside the Soilet box.

This is the beautiful toilet. That's right, its the Asian squating platform. The Indian Standard.

Day 4: Finally-The Foundation for Innovative Sanitation is Laid

Well it's just a box, but not any ol' box. This box will soon be India's first Soilet. There are already hundreds of these in Ghana taking the place of failed septic tanks and smelly latrines. So if all goes well, this could be India's new model for toilets for people that don't have access to a sewer. Now we just need to make a few more cement slabs to go inside, build a toilet on top, and add worms!

Day 3: The Foundation-ish

So this is our foundation which is designed to allow the liquid from one side of the box to drain to the pipe on the other end...well, that's what we told them to do anyway. Unfortunately, the only part that came out in translation was "foundation" and somehow they missed the "drainage" part. As you might see, when we got back to it the next day, we saw this beautiful foundation/drain with a huge puddle in the middle! How does the liquid get to the drainage pipe, you ask? It doesn't, unless you do what we did: resurface the whole darn thing again. Lesson learned: when you let someone catch their own fish instead of giving them a fish, first make sure they know how to fish.

And this is not me, but my good sidekick, Brandon, resurfacing with his amazing masonry skills.

Day 2: The Hole

Even though we are providing all of the materials for the Soilet, we have the locals contribute by having them do some of the labor, such as digging the hole. And they did a good job too.

Then we finished it off by digging the trench for the liquid drainage.

This is the Place!

After searching, negotiating, and social entrepreneuring, we finally found the spot for our first Soilet in India. So why don't you have ten of those built already, you ask? Well, there is so much more to building something that is sustainable than would first meet the eye. So we found an NGO that works in slum areas that lack the basic necessities: water and sanitation (toilets). When we presented the Soilet to this community, they were excited, and the next day, they selected a poor widow to be the first Indian to use a Soilet. Hopefully many of these slum dwellers are able have a Soilet on their own property. Otherwise, they can use a smelly latrine that requires a truck to suck out the sewage or, more common is the "nature is your bathroom" approach. So tomorrow will be the official ground breaking of India's first Soilet. It would have happened today, but it is the lunar eclipse, which is an unlucky day to start a new project.

Kowdipally

This is Kowdipally, a small village that will soon have a Soilet. We took this trip to assess the needs of the area in order to prepare to build the Science Community Center. It will be a place to help kids stay motivated for school while helping the adults learn principles of self reliance and hygiene. To our surprise, this rural community had power, cell phones, running water, but not a single toilet! (Check out the Youtube video a few posts down, especially if these stats surprised you, as they did me). And from what I have observed, this is a common phenomenon throughout rural India. One Soilet system can't support this whole rural community, but this Soilet will serve as a prototype for all of India. 

Living Life on the Edge with the Auto Taxi

 Typical transportation here in Hyderabad is by bus, car, motorcycle, and, as you can see in the pics, the "Auto." If we want to get around town we either run to catch a bus (yes, the bus doesn't stop, so you literally need to run) or we take the yellow, golf-cart-sized, three-wheeled taxi with handle bars. And by the way, every ride is like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. The everyday traffic is like a stampede and it is a miracle every time we get out alive. So we're screaming because we almost get squished between a giant bus and a wall, but its just everyday stuff for an auto driver.

So today we took our auto ride to a local NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) who was interested in implementing the Soilet concept at a rural Community Science Center. This will be the prototype for all of the Soilets we will build in India, and hopefully may become a prototype for all of India. So we're not getting dirty quite yet, as we need to work out all the details so this magic toilet system works the first time we build it. It helps that this NGO is led by a dreamer and an innovator who isn't content with the status quo. These are the type of people it takes to change the world. Yes that's right... Saving the world one toilet at a time... 

Rock On (...or I Love You)

Today the HELP India team visited a "Bridge School," where children are taken out of child labor and are put into a school to help them get caught up and soon put back into public school. As you can see, we taught them the "I Love You" sign. If you look closely, you may notice that some of the children in this picture, for whatever reason, decided to do the very similar "Rock On" sign instead. Rock on India!

Welcome to Hyderabad!

This is me and my sister, Melissa, at Golconda Fort in Hyderabad, India. This picture is interesting because you can see the ancient 400+ year old ruins in contrast with the modern urban city. I've been to New York and Beijing, and I've never seen a city as crammed as this and with such heavy traffic. And it's loud. Drivers honk all the time, not in anger as you would expect in the U.S., but simply saying "hey, I'm here." They honk when they approach cars, intersections, blind spots, and pedestrians. So yes, it is an adjustment leaving the wide open spaces of southern Utah to a place that has no open spaces (except for this fort). When I approached this city in the airplane, I literally could not see the end of the urbanization . It was then when I realized that a team of 13 ambitious volunteers is very small in comparison to a city of 4 million.

The Objective...

On May 11, 2011, I will have the wonderful opportunity of giving service to the people in India through an organization called HELP International. This service opportunity first caught my attention when I saw that a particular project they are going to do in India is engineering-related, thus, of great interest to me. I will be a volunteer involved in building toilet systems that eliminate disease-causing waste disposal. These innovative toilet systems separate solid from liquid waste, composting the two elements into clean and nutrient enriched dirt. These systems—appropriately named “Soilets”—will significantly improve the poor sanitation conditions that contaminate the water supply. These conditions make Indians vulnerable to many diarrheal diseases, which are the #1 cause of death to children under five in developing countries. 

The need for Soilets...

Check out this video, it really opened my eyes to India's sanitation problem.  

If you would like to donate...

Thank you to all of you who have contributed to my India cause! There have been many people who have graciously stepped forward to help fund this volunteer opportunity. Before I left for India, many people asked me, "So who is sponsoring you?" or "Is there a grant for this India project?" It would be wonderful if the money magically appeared for this volunteer work, but this is not the case.
As of Tuesday, May 24, 2011 I  still need $689.92 in order have the program fee paid off.  If you would like to donate (or know someone who would like to donate), please click here to link to PayPal. 

Two more reasons to donate: (1) It is text deductible and (2) You can consider yourself as part of my team to fight poverty in India!