Happy World Toilet Day everyone! A day on which we acknowledge the hundreds of millions of people around the world who don’t have a toilet. A day that acknowledges the millions of girls who drop out of school on reaching puberty because their school has no toilets.

Mark Balla: I have very exciting news to go along with this most auspicious of days! We have just received approval from The Rotary Foundation for a substantial new WASH in Schools project in India. For clarity “WASH in Schools” is “Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Schools”. The total value of the project is almost US$93,000 or close to A$140,000. A little under 60% of the funding comes from The Rotary Foundation and a number of Rotary Districts in Australia and India with the rest coming from Rotary clubs, schools, corporate supporters, other charitable organisations and individuals all over the world!

In January 2019 a group of us from Australia travelled to India to unveil some new toilets. We were very fortunate to be accompanied by then Trustee of The Rotary Foundation, Julia Phelps. Such a wonderful experience for all concerned.

After the festivities were over, the "toilet" people of the Rotary Club of Box Hill Central and the Rotary Club of Nasik Road sat down to discuss the big question: what next? And so, this project was born. A first draft of the project concept was completed by around May of 2019, and fund raising began in earnest with a rolling series of public speaking engagements all over Australia and around the world both in person and on Zoom.

We hit a few hurdles on the way. The pandemic was just one of them. There were even a couple of occasions when we thought of throwing in the towel. Then we remembered the many thousands of children who were relying on us to get this project underway. And so, we persevered.

At this point I would like to hand over to my friend Firdaus Kapadia from the Rotary Club of Nasik Road to give you an outline of the project. All yours Firdaus.

Firdaus Kapadia from the Rotary Club of Nasik Road: Thanks Mark.

Under this project we envisage providing sanitation facilities including toilet cubicles, urinals and hand wash stations to four schools near Nasik.

The project will also provide training to selected teachers from these schools for imparting a government approved hygiene curriculum to students through the Cooperating Agency M/s. Effenkay Corporation.

The total number of students benefiting from this project is 4600 every year for the life of the toilets. Indirectly the benefit would extend to the families of these students.

Our previous experience with similar projects has been a 15% increase in admission of girl students and also reduced absence of adolescent girls during their periods. Adolescent girls are forced to drop out of the education system due to lack of sanitation facilities in their schools and this project will ensure that they remain in school and complete their education.

Three of these schools are located more than 60 km from the city of Nasik, a few hours by road from Mumbai. This grant also involves follow up with regular visits to the schools and ensuring supervision of proper utilization of the facilities provided, and also overseeing implementation of the hygiene education curriculum.

Thanks Firdaus. So very exciting! I can’t wait to get over there in late March to unveil the completed toilets!

Mark Balla: For those readers who are still riveted by this story, if you want to know more, my book “Toilet Warrior” tell it in detail, warts and all. If you don’t laugh at some stage and cry at some stage while reading it, I will happily refund the cost of your purchase. I’m told that it is a good read and to top it all off, if you do buy a copy, you will be helping ensure that this work continues. www.toiletwarrior.net

In the meantime, please enjoy the short slideshow that we've prepared giving a little taste of some of the work we’ve done over the past nine years impacting on the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, their families and their communities.