MYSORE RURAL - HUNSUR

India has seen tremendous growth in economy since the early 90’s when it opened to the global market. However, with a population estimated at about 1.2 billion, the benefit of such a growth has been marginal. It is estimated that 78 million economically backward people are homeless in India and in Karnataka state alone, it is estimated that more than families are homeless. In urban areas, these populations occupy squatter settlements usually temporary in nature due to unavailability of land. It is also true that the economically backward or weak sections of the population are usually socially backward too. Socially backward refers to those segments of the population who are disadvantaged due to their social background. For example, the tribal communities may be socially disadvantaged because of their isolation from mainstream economy and the social benefits that it may provide to sustain life in the modern world. Their otherwise sustainable lifestyle may have been endangered due to government policies which is unreachable for the tribal groups. Recent evidence indicates that India is heading towards a major sanitation crisis in the coming years. The fastest growing economy seems to have missed out on having adequate toilet facilities for as high as 65% of its population. For example, nearly half of India’s 1.2 billion people have no toilet at home, but more than half of India’s people own a mobile phone, indicates the latest census data According to the census of 2011, 53.1% (63.6% in 2001) of the households in India do not have a toilet, with the percentage being as high as 69.3% (78.1% in 2001) in rural areas and 18.6% (26.3% in 2001) in urban areas Furthermore, field studies indicate that even the use of the existing toilets in both rural and urban areas is very low These facts have also been reconfirmed by another report released on 6th March 2012 by the WHO/UNICEF’s Joint Monitoring Programme on sanitation for the Millennium Development Goals, which has also indicated that 59% (626 million) Indians still do not have access to toilets and practice open defecation and that majority of them live in rural areas We have selected Hunsur town as our area of focus for this workcamp. It is home to tribal communities living mostly at the edge of the reserved forest in the Western Ghats and their livelihood is primarily based on forest produce and partly from agriculture. The literacy level in these communities is very low due to several reasons like poverty, frequent migration, inadequate infrastructure and poor accessibility. The federal and local government has initiated several schemes exclusively for these communities but has failed to achieve the expected results. Still the literacy level has not crossed 30 - 40 % and is even less among women population. FSL-India has been developing projects for m