CHENNAI: Four years back, the team of Studio Recycle Bin — an architecture and urban designing consultancy — launched a pet project called Toilet Tales to map publicly accessible toilets. Thus, the concept of the Toilet Mapathon was born. After its success in Thiruvananthapuram, other parts of Kerala, and Pune, they’re all set to execute the project in Chennai. “This initiative is a reflection of our journey through some of the remote villages of Tamil Nadu. Public toilets, for a long time, have been taken for granted. They’ve been vandalised, poorly maintained and there’s always been a blame game as to who must take responsibility for its proper functioning. We realised that involving the public, corporation and key stakeholders would be the way forward,” details Ganga Dileep C, CEO. The team of architects and urban designers have been working on various verticals of four slum rehabilitation projects in Chennai for nine months.
A collective effort
For the initiative, they have collaborated with Cheer, Greater Chennai Corporation, and IHE Delft, Netherlands. From March 30 to April 2, a mapathon of public toilets will be conducted through toilet volunteers and toilet fellows. “It is the first step to knowing toilets through generation of crowdsourced data. Mapathon will be conducted across all the 15 zones of Greater Chennai Corporation. We expect to map 1,000 toilets in three days,” says Ganga.
A key highlight among their list of programmes is the International Toilet Fellowship 2022, which offers mentorship of experts from different backgrounds to look at public toilets and sanitation through different lenses. The seven-day training prior to the Toilet Mapathon will comprise sessions on topics from toilet design, public health to toilet economy and governance of publicly accessible toilets in Chennai city. “We invited applications from young professionals and students from architecture, planning, urban design, engineering, sociology, law and medical background for the three-month fellowship. We’ve received applications from across the country; of which 30 will be selected,” she explains.
While the deadlines for fellowship have closed, the team is open to accepting volunteers till March 25. “It’s an opportunity for people who want to be an advocate of public hygiene and learn about the urban sanitation system of Chennai to gather more knowledge and field experience. Toilet volunteers will be collecting ground data about the number of public toilets and their qualities like hygiene, privacy, maintenance, safety, accessibility, and so on. There’s been an immensely great response from the public,” she suggests.
For a larger cause
To spread the word, an International Toilet Festival (ITF) 2022, on April 2 and 3 at Santhome Higher Secondary School, is also a part of their agenda. This will be a platform for citizens, the government, students, young professionals, academicians, and practitioners of the city to come together and discuss the conditions of sanitation in the city. “We will have an expo with stalls selling toilet equipment and appliances; automation and technology; sustainable sanitation solutions; amenity, hygiene products; fragrances and deodorants; services and consulting. We will also be felicitating sanitation workers,” she says.
The team is collaborating with Greater Chennai Corporation for the first time. They hope to prepare a holistic city sanitation strategy integrating water management and solid waste management. “An extension of our ongoing efforts is an app called Kakoos. It will provide a list of accessible toilets. They can rate the toilets based on accessibility, safety and security, condition, and building maintenance. It’s currently a work in progress and will be ready soon. The goal is to take the data and information gathered at the grassroots level to the top level and take it up with the corporation officials for a wider reach. It’s just the beginning,” she concludes.