Swach Jeevan, Swasth Jeevan

In just about 35 years, or may be much earlier, 50 per cent of Indians will live in urban settlements. Going by the current trends, most of this growth will happen in the slums that typically characterize shanty locations where one can see people defecating in open, living in unhygienic conditions, queuing up for hours to fetch a bucket of drinking water and so on. Addressing these problems of the urban poor needs an inclusive development and their participation. The World Health Organisation estimates that unsafe drinking-water, inadequate hygiene and sanitation contribute to an estimated 1.9 million annual deaths, primarily in children under five. The Planning Commission estimated that each year, between 0.4 and 0.5 million Indian children, under age five, die of diarrheal diseases. According to the United Nations Development Programme, 73 million working days are lost each year in India to water-borne diseases at a cost of $600m (INR 38 billion) in terms of medical treatment and lost production.

Parivartan conducts regular awareness camps for personal hygiene of under privileged women and children. These people have neither access nor capacity to acquire the required levels of personal hygiene. Topics from Sanitation to Nutrition are covered in these camps. Apart from information, Parivartan has also donated personal hygiene care kits including tooth brushes, tooth pastes, Sanitary napkins, soaps, sanitizers to needy people regularly.

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