SAUCHA

The Saucha model requires an anchor organization with a commitment to training its corporate employees using Master Trainers and further disseminating the messaging content to the 3 target groups with the help of the Gram Panchayat. Depending upon the population and the intended outreach, the organization undertakes to prepare its corporate volunteers as Swatchhata Saathis covering the 3 target groups to facilitate the messaging & outreach.

When the Program started

Under the Swachh Bharat Mission-Rural guidelines the need for a dedicated, trained and incentivized sanitation work force at the GP level was required. These Swatchhagrahis were to carry out the right messaging regarding good sanitation behavior that needed to be completed in the course of triggering of demand and subsequent toilet construction.

These individuals who came primarily from the communities that they lived in were required to know the beneficiary, assist in the IEC, maintain records, and track progress as required at the GP level. The GP/VWSC would engage these Swachhata Doots or Swachhata Sena to carry out and be responsible for all such sanitation related activities in the GP. States were expected to decide on the guidelines for their engagement and the honorarium/remuneration to such Doots, which was essentially to attract dedicated and serious workers. Use of ASHAs, Anganwadi workers, ANM workers was considered, however ideally, they were expected to serve on a full-time basis. Expenses on the Swachhata Doots were expected to be borne on the IEC component of the SBM (G).

The Challenges faced by the Government

While the government was fairly successful in appointing ASHA, Anganwadi and ANM workers as Swatchhagrahis, there were several learnings which would now need to be focused upon if this program is to continue its service of dissemination of knowledge across rural India.

Firstly, it had been recognized that the role would require full time employees to do the job. The appointed cadre from Anganwadi workers, Asha and ANM workers were doing this role as an additional responsibility to their primary jobs. Their potential to focus only on Water and sanitation is hence limited to that extent. A lot of these workers are also bread earners for their families and are expected to look after the household chores as well. The call on their time thus becomes further stressed. All these challenges faced by the current number of Swatchhagrahis means that the number of dedicated resources to undertake this role needs to be increased significantly.

Secondly, given the remuneration for these workers comes from the GP, it is common for it to get delayed or sometimes not paid in full depending on when the GP receives its share of the grant. This creates a big challenge for the swatchhagrahis as they are more often than not the primary bread earners for their families, or their families rely on their financial contribution to meet their daily needs.

Thirdly, from a knowledge perspective, for an issue such as Water and Sanitation which under SBM 2 has been expanded to include household and plastic waste as well as wastewater treatment and reuse, fecal sludge management etc. there is need for a deeper understanding of the challenges faced if one is to explain the benefits to the communities it is meant for. The current set of swatchhagrahis may not be equipped with that level of education.

The Recommendation

What is the purpose of Saucha

With all these learnings from the deployment of swatchhagrahis in SBM 1, this Concept note envisages the deployment of this model to include a volunteer based task force from the Corporates stationed in the said area trained through customized programs which will help them understand how the various challenges of SBM 2 specifically with regard to solid and liquid waste management could be resolved. Once trained they will work with the Gram Panchayat to explain the importance of solid and liquid waste management to the village communities, starting with the collection, transportation and treatment of waste; how waste can be recycled to make it useful through the deployment of simple technologies. Most importantly, their ability to do this consistently over a period of time given they would be dedicated to this role will help build trust with the villagers as well as making them more amenable to accepting changes to the way they have been doing things in the past. This unique taskforce will be named as the Swatchhta Saathis and will be given training by ISC and its partners and certification by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation ( Rural).

For Whom is it designed

The Corporate Employee program is envisaged as volunteer based one where employees will have a chance to get educated first on WASH issues that are prevalent in the surrounding villages to their factory premises and solutions that are being proposed to solve these issues. This will be done through one of the 3 options proposed hereunder.

Once the chosen program is understood by the corporate volunteers they will be responsible for the deployment in their chosen villages, reporting all challenges, best in class stories, data monitoring etc. to the Gram Panchayat so that these can be included in the reports that the GP provides to the District Collector as well as to DDWS to showcase progress in their villages.

Who is the target Audience

Programs will be directed to the following groups:

Children – Ages 6 to 10
Young Mothers with children less than 5 years
Parents of school going children

The Model

The Saucha model requires an anchor organization with a commitment to train its corporate employees through the use of Master Trainers and further disseminate the messaging content to the 3 target groups with the help of the Gram Panchayat. Depending upon the population and the intended outreach, the organization undertakes to prepare its corporate volunteers as Swatchhata Saathis covering the 3 target groups to facilitate the messaging & outreach.

As corporate volunteers get identified, the anchoring organization may on its own or by the help of a 3rd party, conduct the following:

Baseline1
Training of corporate volunteers
Scheduling community sessions periodically (multiple contacts) across platforms (Schools, Anganwadi’s & mohallas)
Implementation (Rollout)
Reporting
Endline

Option 1: Execution by Corporate through a 3rd party execution agency (where only training materials are provided by ISC)

Scoping/Preparation:

Identification of target geographies (states--> districts--> villages) along with 1 GP per block as a pilot
Identification of village population
Listing out workforce for selection of Swachhata Saathis
Selection of Swachhata Saathis based on population to be covered
Development of Collaterals (These to be provided by ISC and partners and will be customized for each target group that is being addressed)

Training

Capacity Building/Training of future Saathis in batches of 30 max by training agency (1 day training) including mock exercise.
Provision of monitoring tools to be provided to Saathis to assist in monitoring of the programs as well as provide feedback to the Corporate on how the programs are being received and adopted by the various communities they work with.
Follow up interactions with Saathis for a month by the Master Trainer to ensure that all Saathis are integrated in their roles
Company to ensure that they designate an employee within their orgainsation who will be trained as a Master Trainer so that all future training can be offered in house by the Company

Roll-Out

Community mobilization at School, Households (for mothers) and ‘Mohallas’ by training agency
Facilitation of roll-out (volunteer transportation, community participation, recording attendance etc.)
Community feedback and analysis to customize approach for post pilot roll-out
Refresher training & addressing Saathi challenges

Reporting (By training agency)

Collection of sampled data (baseline) to assess Knowledge, Attitude & Practice for sanitation behavior
Execution agency to record community feedback (to Saathis exercise) in a pre-set format
Keeping call records of calls post contact
Endline survey within 6 months of community activation
Refresher surveys at preset intervals as decided by Corporate

Option 2: Training for Swachhata Saathis by ISC – where Corporate engages ISC and partners to train their workforce as well as provide implementation overview to the Swachhta Saathis

Scoping/Preparation:

Identification of target geographies (states--> districts--> villages) along with 1 GP per block as a pilot (based on secondary data
Identification of village population
Listing out workforce for selection of Swachhata Saathis
Selection of Swachhata Saathis based on population to be covered
Development of Collaterals (These to be provided by ISC and partners and will be customized for each target group that is being addressed)

Capacity Building/Training

Training of Swachhata Saathis on roll-out + activation + reporting by ISC and partners

Roll-Out

Community mobilization at School, Households (for mothers) and Mohallas’ by ISC and partners
Facilitation of roll-out (volunteer transportation, community participation, recording attendance etc.) by ISC and partners
Community feedback and analysis to customize approach for post pilot roll-out by ISC and partners
Refresher training & addressing Saathi challenges

Reporting (By ISC)

Collection of sample data (baseline) Corporate for assessment of Knowledge, Attitude & Practice for sanitation behavior by ISC and partners
Corporate to record community feedback (to Saathis exercise) in a pre-set format
Keeping call records of calls post contact (by ISC and partners)
Endline survey within 6 months of community activation
Refresher surveys at preset intervals as decided by Corporate

Option 3: Self Approach; Limited to training by ISC & roll out by Corporate (or local NGO) where Corporate engages ISC and partners to train the NGO that will support their efforts.

Scoping/Preparation:

Identification of target geographies (states--> districts--> villages) along with 1 GP per block as a pilot (based on secondary data )
Identification of village population
Listing out workforce for selection of Swachhata Saathis
Selection of Swachhata Saasthis based on population to be covered
Development of Collaterals (These to be provided by ISC and partners and will be customized for each target group that is being addressed)

Recruitment of local NGO for roll out by sponsoring institution with the help of external agency

Capacity Building/Training

Extensive training to institutional CSR/development department officials by external agency
Training of Local NGO on roll-out + activation + reporting by external agency
Training of workforce by external agency (along with mock exercise for workforce and Local NGO)

Roll-Out

Community mobilization at School, Households (for mothers) and ‘Mohallas’ by local NGO
Facilitation of roll-out (volunteer transportation, community participation, recording attendance etc.) by Local NGOs
Community feedback and analysis to customize approach for post pilot roll-out by local NGO and sponsoring institution o Refresher training & addressing doot challenges

Reporting (By local NGO)

Collection of sampled data (baseline) by Local NGO for assessment of Knowledge, Attitude & Practice for sanitation behavior by external agency
Local NGO to record community feedback (to swatchata sathis exercise) in a pre-set format
Keeping call records of calls post contact (by institution)
Endline survey within 6 months of community activation (by institutionally recruited agency)

What is required

Key elements of the model that are required for any organisation/institution to adopt the model of their choice:

Master Trainers (will be provided by ISC and Partners)
Customised training material (will be provided by ISC and Partners)
Corporate Volunteers (Corporate to organise)
WASH Monitoring Committee (to be formed under the aegis of the GP along with partners Corporate, ISC and GP members)

TRAINING MATERIALS

PHASE 1: ( Available)

HAATH/MUH/BUM

PHASE 2: ( To be Developed)

Plastic waste management
Household waste management
Wastewater management
Fecal sludge management
Interlinkages to Health and Wellbeing