Community eco-sanitation toilets, India
Despite the fact that India is experiencing tremendous growth as an industrialised society, it is estimated that at least 400 million people live on or below the poverty line. The majority of these people live in the many tens of thousands of rural villages scattered around the sub-continent. Life in rural India has in many respects remained much the same for the past several hundred years. The reality is that villagers eke out a subsistence living to pay for the large families they support; it is still accepted that children are expected to provide for their parents when they get older, and a large family increases the chances of a better retirement. They struggle to get at least one child, invariably a son, through the education system. Wherever the Need decided to tackle both these problems in villages, schools and semi-urban environments by introducing women only eco-sanitation toilets.