Sulabh Sanitation Initiative to Expand to South Africa

To provide these services to rural areas in South Africa, the Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak-founded, internationally recognised Sulabh sanitation project will be expanded there.

The Gandhi-King-Mandela International Conference 2023 in Pietermaritzburg this week featured Dr. Bindeshwar as a guest speaker because the model he created, which gave Indian women not just sanitation but also dignity, was founded on Gandhian ideals.

Gandhi discussed sanitation. He stated in India in 1919 that he desired a clean India first, followed by education, and then independence. Therefore, I created a technique that made it possible to have bathrooms inside of homes. Every home now has a toilet thanks to the assistance of the Indian government, the speaker claimed.

Bindeshwar said that in order to address India's sanitation issues, public restrooms have been installed in locations such as train stations, bus stops, and police stations.

Since it's a technology that can be used everywhere, he added, "Those can be applicable and implemented in South Africa."

"Like India, South Africa cannot afford the sewage infrastructure of a country like America, hence this technique is 100% applicable at a reasonable cost.” Therefore, he stated, “those technologies are useless for addressing the sanitary issues in our nations.”

Bindeshwar also discussed how his initiative has improved the lives of the Dalit community, who had previously been relegated to cleaning toilets and removing night soil while being considered as untouchables, as well as empowered women.

Bindeshwar said, "This also helped fulfil the dream of Gandhi to uplift the lowest people in society and bring them into the social mainstream," and he was thrilled by the tremendous interest shown in his exhibition, which featured a working small-scale model of how human excrement can be transformed into a variety of eco-friendly products, including safe drinking water.

One of the many posters on display at the conference's exhibition showed how a Dalit woman had transformed her life from one of a scavenger collecting night soil to one of empowering herself and other women to the point where she received the President of India's highest civilian honour, the Pama Shree.

According to David Gengen, chair of the Pietermaritzburg Gandhi Foundation, discussions have already taken place to implement the system in the area between the Gandhi Foundation, the local municipality, the Indian Consul General's office in Durban, and the agricultural department of the University of KwaZulu Natal.

“We aim to introduce this crucial relationship to our rural areas”, according to David.

"We want to bring Dr. Bindeshwar here to train people, but if we can't bring him here, the Indian government said they will send some people across to India to be trained there," David said, “adding that the same option will apply for training in solar energy to benefit rural communities in the province.”

"India is one of the leaders in solar power in the villages, where they have a panel powering lights, computers, and other things that has dramatically changed the lifestyles of the people in those villages," he added. "India is one of the leaders in solar power in the villages."

According to David, this will be built on the Barefoot College NGO model, in which women from remote villages receive training as solar engineers, business owners, and educators in order to provide clean energy to their communities and empower other women in their villages.