By Sowmiya
(Summarised from Sowmiya’s Tamizh writing by Sharada Ramadass for NFLC 2020)

Week3 (Governance, Water and Sanitation) had a deep impact on our young student Sowmiya B, when she got to understand more about sanitation and especially, sanitary workers, during her field trip to Coimbatore. So much so that she hopes to work in that domain, in the future! Here’s what ran through Sowmiya’s head that she shares, with all of us:

“Only now I realized how much of problems exist in sanitation and why it is important. I learnt that 2.3 billion people lack good sanitation facilities and over 28,000 suffer from diarrhea and it made me sad. When we see this, we think of how to stop or prevent this. The fact that Keystone considers this important and is working on this is appreciable. Because many may not give it importance thinking it is dirty and lowly work. I also thought that way before. But after this week, I realize more and don’t think that way. Building toilet facilities and providing safe sanitation was some of the things I learnt about Keystone’s work. When I learnt how the fecal water and sludge are separated and while the sludge is used back in agriculture/ farming, the water is reused for other purposes, I liked it very much. Because of this we can prevent birth of children with deformities and loss of lives.”