IMPACT

• A summary….

Age and Team

• More than 15 years of existence! (Formally registered as a charity Trust in 2006 under the Indian Trust Act 1882)
• 10 core members; 6 active in Village Rural Lab; 4 active in Centre for Circular Economy.
  
• Student interns – normally 3 – 8 at any time

Innovations created by the FIN community (professional volunteers, students, Rural lab staff and Kameswaram village artisans)

– click to go to the corresponding video or document

• Low cost climate resilient ecosan sanitation system with or without bathroom (frugal innovation)
• Rainwater harvesting on toilets (frugal innovation)
• User friendly public waste bins that serve as street signs (social/frugal innovation)
• COVID – Glocalised Hygiene behaviour campaign (humanitarian innovation)
• Calendars featuring emergency numbers and bus transport timings (social innovation)
• Refurbished and beautified bus-stops giving relevant information – again emergency numbers and bus-transport as well as advocating for good hygiene behaviour through innovative art with the participation of the community (social innovation)
• Toilet Beauty contests (incentivizing grassroots innovation)
• Masons innovation contests (incentivizing grassroots innovation)

Sanitation & Waste management in Kameswaram village

• 364 Ecosan toilets for individual households
• 30 Toilets with septic tanks
• 2 Community toilet complexes
• 1 bathroom
• 1 community washbasin system
• 21 Rural Masons Trained
• 2 Toilet Beauty Contests
• 1 Masons Innovation Contest
•  34 Public waste bins constructed and distributed
• 200 Household waste tins
• Had door to door collection system in village before government took over

 

 Community Engagement in village 

• 3 Bus-stops beautified – with public waste bins, motivational messages, art and emergency telephone numbers;
• Beach Trash Walks (On average 2 to 3 times every year)
• Normally one workshop per month – also focussing on vulnerable groups – elderly, disabled in the village;

 

 

 

COVID Responses

• 10,000 masks distributed via ration shops
• Education campaigns for observation of hygiene behaviour
• Education campaigns for vaccination

 

Training

• Training:- 224 Internships (145 international students and 79 Indian students) – as of December 28, 2023
• International training for 9 quiz masters from 4 countries for World Toilet Day in 2020
• Skilling Programmes with two corporates
• 5 student dissertations in collaboration with the academic institute

Events outside of Kameswaram village

• 8 International webinars
• 7 student webinars
• 2 onsite conferences
• 2 onsite workshops

 

 

Research & Advocacy

• International campaign for social distancing to contain COVID-19 contamination (2020) in 16 languages – English, 5 Indian and 10 other languages of Europe and Africa
• 7 Sponsored Research Projects on Sanitation and hygiene
• 5 Peer reviewed international publications; 2 book chapter on lessons and 9 articlespublished by institutes/agencies on insights from the FIN experience
• 72 videos 
• 7 event recordings as videos
  

Manuals

• Building a toilet with an attached septic tank
• Building an ecosan toilet