Alumni Nyay Mishra from Chhattisgarh, shares his experience of making his village one of the 1st open defecation free villages under Swachh Bharat Mission

 In the year 2014, Indian Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi launched Swachh Bharat Mission and declared that by October 2019, India will open defecation free. Within 60 months 660 million people in India got access to toilets, mostly in rural areas. By 2018, more Indians living in villages owned a latrine and the national rural sanitation coverage increased from 34% to 98% during the period of 2014-18.

No doubt that the huge impetus provided by the government has resulted in the positive impact that can be seen throughout the country, but no one can deny the effort put across by Indian citizens that has made the achievement possible.

Nyay Mishra, alumnus of  Saraswati Shishu Mandir Higher Secondary School, Kasdol, Chhattisgarh , has successfully helped his village to become open defecation free in 2017 - 18 and was rewarded by the government for the same.

Mr. Mishra is a resident of Kasdol in Baloda Bazar district of Chhattisgarh.  He is a farmer by profession and has been working closely with the local Gram Panchayat for the past 5 years to bring positive social changes in his village.

Mr. Mishra  from his school days was a bright and outgoing student, who showed keen interest in extracurricular activities. He enjoyed participating in science and maths fairs, as well as different sports and public speaking competitions.

After completion of his studies Mr. Mishara started taking a deep interest in the development and planning of his village with the help of the local gram panchayat.  He started working under Swachh Bharat Mission as a member of  ‘Youth for Change’. Under this program, a panchayat meeting was called to discuss and lay out a plan with the aim of cleaning the village and making it open defecation free.  Several teams were made and given different responsibilities, such as generation of public awareness, setting up proper simple and efficient garbage disposal systems, organising cleanliness drives etc. The members also enlisted the help of local village children and made them responsible for helping the teams to curb the problems of open defecation and maintaining general cleanliness. 

Changing the mindset of the residents proved to be the biggest struggle and the teams had to find out unique solutions to the challenges . Slowly but surely villagers attitudes changed and the village became one of the first in Chhattisgarh to be declared 'open defecation free village' and was awarded with 20 lakh rupees by the government under Swachh Bharat Mission.

While speaking about his school, Mr. Mishra went on to say that he feels that he was privileged to have received the opportunity to study in a Vidya Bharati school, where his teachers helped him to refine his natural skills. As a parting message Mr. Mishra urged all Vidya Bharati students to remember the values taught to them in their schools and develop the sense of spirituality and service.

Vidya Bharati Purv Chatra Parishad thanks Nyay Mishra for sharing his unique experiences with the community.

If you are a Vidya Bharati alumni and and are associated with any kind of social or community service please share your details at www.vidyabharatialumni.org/social-service-survey or email us at info@vidyabharatialumni.org and we will get in touch with you.