INDIA, Lakshmi's Story
Eleven-year-old Lakshmi does not take time off school anymore. The reason? Her school now has a toilet.
Until recently, Lakshmi and her classmates had to walk a long way from their school compound, in the Medak district of Andhra Pradesh, central India, to find some privacy behind a thicket of bushes. On one occasion, a snake moving near her in the bushes frightened Lakshmi so much that she told her mother she would never go to school again.
UNICEF/ HQ05-0761/Pallava Bagla
But now all that has changed. "My school has toilets now," says Lakshmi, "and we no longer need to leave the compound to relieve ourselves." As a result, she says, children do not miss school so much.
Providing clean drinking water was equally important, as Rajasekhar, a student from another school in the district, explains. "The water used to have a bad taste and we often clutched our stomachs in pain. None of this happens anymore."
All the schoolchildren in the district are taught good hygiene practices and are directly involved in keeping their environment clean. And summer camps help the students to remember what they have learned and to pass on their knowledge to others. "Attending the camp at a new school was such fun," says Manasa, another local student. "I learnt so much. I want to introduce good hygiene and sanitation practices in my school, too."
