Sixteen year old Aisha, studying in Urdu medium at Basava Theertha Vidya Peeta (BTVP) aspires to become a doctor. While interacting with the girls at BTVP, the lack of toilet facilities in the school was a major concern. On most days, girls skipped drinking water to avoid using open fields as toilets. After the installation of toilets in her school, Aisha welcomed Team Sewa with a huge smile on her face thanking us immensely for fulfilling the promise we made to them. Going through all the challenges in installing the toilets was worth that smile.

Aisha

If we have to attend nature calls during the school hours, either we have to go home or find an open space nearby. Sometimes, we take two more girls from the class when we go out to attend nature calls so, they can watch out for us. During the menstrual period, we don't attend schools due to the lack of toilets. When we go home in between the school hours to use a rest room, most of the time we don't come back as our parents suggest us to stay home instead of going back to school.   We hesitate and feel embarrassed to share or openly talk about these issues. Thanks to Sewa team, now we have toilets and we can attend school without interrupting our study hours.

- Class 8 and 9 Students, Lucknow Government school, Uttar Pradesh

This village has not seen a toilet since our ancestors have moved and settled here. Since we don't have any open field that we can use for nature calls, before sunrise, we use our house terrace to attend nature calls and then dispose them outside our village. We come from a poor economic background, and toilets are a luxury for us. Thank you Sewa International for travelling miles to help us, thank you for building community toilets. We don't have much words to express our gratitude. We are happy that our little girls do not have to go through what we have suffered for such a long time.

Durgaben, Baluva village- Uttar Pradesh