Toiling hard to build toilets brick by brick

At the very beginning, I did not have much of a chance to build a proper life. Born into a poor tribal family in Jharkhand, my future looked as bleak as the circumstances I found myself in then.

I wanted to study, but I could not. Instead, I had to do all the domestic work that women from poor families must do. 

Fortunately, I got involved in the village self-help group for women. Then an opportunity came in the shape of the Swachh Bharat Mission in 2014. 

Every SHG group in the community was assigned a goal of constructing toilets in their respective locations. 

Our group was given the goal of constructing 150 toilets within six months. 

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We approached every mason in our village to help us build the toilets. But all of them turned us down, saying the payment offered for the project was too low.

The masons like the other men in the village were not too convinced about the necessity of toilets. They did not share the problems that the women faced without toilets. They had to wake up before dawn to finish their daily chores. Some even got bitten by snakes while venturing out in the fields in the dark. 

With the masons being uncooperative, we decided to train ourselves in masonry so that we could build the toilets ourselves.

But that also did not prove to be easy. Most of our women members ran away, fearing objections from their menfolk at home. 

Some eight women were finally ready to be taught masonry. I got myself trained too. 

That was the beginning of the change in our lives. We started out constructing one toilet after the other.

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Initially, people used to mock us. Some in fact even went to the extent of demolishing the toilets we built.

But we persisted and kept building toilets. Soon trust developed. Now the men of our village help us in building them. 

We succeeded and our group was deployed with other villagers to train other women in masonry. 

Till now, I myself have trained some 1,500 women. 

What we did was adopted as a model by the Jharkhand government. There are some 50,000 women masons in the state. They are called Rani Mistris.

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My work was recognised. I received social acceptance as well.

In 2019, I was awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar by none other than the country’s president. 

I contested the panchayat election in 2022 and won. People who opposed me earlier voted for me. 

In more ways, I have found my identity. But what is equally gratifying is that I have done my bit in freeing villagers from the scourge of open defecation. My world does not stink anymore.

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