TUMAKURU: When the little girl at home puts her foot down, there is nothing much that parents can do other than give in to her demand. That's exactly what happened in Halenahalli, a little village in Sira taluk of Tumakuru district where Lavanya, a 15-year-old schoolgirl, staged a 48-hour-protest without having a morsel of food insisting that a toilet be constructed in her house. And the class nine student of Shantala High School in Sira taluk of Tumakuru, succeeded, even inspiring the construction of about 60 toilets in rural households in a span of 2 months.
Lavanya had used the toilet at her school but realised how important it was to have one at home after she participated in an awareness campaign conducted in Sira on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Swachh Bharat Mission. One of the Mission objectives is to make India clean and green by constructing individual household latrines.
She and her classmates then started campaigning about the necessity of having toilets in their village and stepped up pressure at home. A relative of the girl, while speaking to this correspondent, said Lavanya felt ashamed to defecate in the open, which left her uncomfortable and embarrassed.
Initially, her parents Devaraj and Bhagyamma, turned down her request to construct a toilet, citing financial problems. But finally, they agreed with the gram panchayat too lending a helping hand to build the toilet.
When Lavanya narrated the success story to her classmates and teachers, the campaign caught on and as many as 60 toilets sprang up in Halenahalli and surrounding villages in no time.
Change begins at home
Lavanya’s classmate, Shashikala told this newspaper that her parents too had agreed to construct a toilet at home after she recounted what her friend had done. “The right to have a toilet is as basic as the right to food. It’s a matter of pride that our student started an Andolan for construction of toilets in rural parts and inspired several parents to construct toilets,” said school headmaster, Keshavamurthy.
