Page 41 - Mann Ki Baat - English

to safety and dignity and can
actively engage in daily life –
studying, working or traveling.
Further, toilet construction
also involved women’s groups,
training of thousands of women
in toilet design and construction,
and creating livelihood
opportunities. Through this
lens, SBM is also a women’s
empowerment initiative, beyond
just access to toilets.
At its core, though, SBM
helped redefine the relationship
between public health and
sanitation. By aiming to deliver
universal access to sanitation,
SBM has addressed one of
the key drivers of malnutrition
and poor health - exposure to
faecal-oral pathogens. Children
are now less vulnerable to
recurrent illnesses like diarrhoea,
which affects their health and
impedes their ability to learn
and grow. SBM’s impact on child
health highlights how improved
sanitation is key to broader
social progress. The statistics are
impressive. Through SBM, over
117 million household toilets were
constructed, and more than
600,000 villages were declared
open defecation-free (ODF) by

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