- Rising Voices - https://rising.globalvoices.org -

Improving Sanitation: Making Videos In South Delhi

Categories: Feature

The opening credits read: “We want to get our voices heard.”

Telling a story from the perspective of four girls in South Delhi, a short film about safety and health risks posed by poor sanitation came from a projects put together by Feminist Approach to Technology [1]. The organisation seeks to empower girls and women with the tools needed to advocate for their communities, in this case hoping to help change the local sanitation situation. This video [2] was a finalist at the Youth Voices Adobe Aspire Awards [3].

Economic growth remains a priority for India’s government but, according to a Time Magazine report, [4]

Out of the world’s estimated 7 billion people, 6 billion have access to mobile phones. Far fewer — only 4.5 billion people — have access to working toilets.

Sub-par sanitation conditions negatively affect girls in particular, where girls may leave school if there are not sex segregated toilets (UNHCR [5]). But getting those who are most affected to explain the problem requires more than a report, and this is where an organisation like FAT steps in.

FAT’s tech centre [6] gives students the space to explore a variety of multimedia tools. The film was a collaboration with Voices of Women Media [7] to teach young women in the slum communities of South Delhi to utilize the power of media to address and question the poor conditions of public toilets in their communities, and empower them to demand better amenities from the local government. As Shambhavi Singh, FAT's Communications Associate, said

We want the girls to address issues such as the lack of safety, health and hygiene—which are a lack of basic human rights… In the long term, we hope these tools and skills will empower them to use media and laws such as the Right to Information Act [8] to ensure that their broader community get the full benefit of government programs meant for urban individuals with low socio-economic status.”

The training is part of a six-month project beginning this coming fall. There will be around 25 girls participating in the program, attending sessions twice a week. Each girl will create her own work focusing on the issue of the lack of toilets in their homes using photography, radio and video. The participants will then be allowed to choose if they wish to reveal their identities, or use actors and other techniques to stay anonymous. After creating their own works, participants will show the videos through in various organized screenings.

Girls engage with technologyThe tech center is doing more than just teaching girls how to use a camera, but they are also providing a space to advocate for themselves. Raising awareness around health, hygiene and safety of young girls in urban slums of India and how this affects women’s rights worldwide. VOW and FAT plan to build community support in order to put pressure on local government authorities to improve the condition of public toilets.

“We hope to change the situation by organizing the screenings in the community area and other major forums in Delhi,” says Singh, where the plan is also to engage the municipalities and local governments and submit RTIs (Right to Information petitions) in order to make local government bodies accountable.