toilets with the facilities for women and children on the upper floors to ensure their safety. We introduced the idea of a caretaker’s house on the upper floor— the penthouse in the slum for the person from the lowest caste. We attached a community center to this space. We raised money from the private sector to provide solar panels so that toilets could be off the grid, not dependent on the city for power, and be illuminated throughout the night. Again, these decisions to ensure illumination throughout the night were based on the need to make the facilities truly accessible to women and children, the most vulnerable segments of the urban poor population. Unfortunately, despite these innovations, the project failed. Upon retrospection, I think we had not really managed to successfully engage the community and foster a sense of ownership of these spaces within the community. We had failed to make the local residents actual participants of the planning process. So, even though our designs were spot on, people did not feel that crucial sense of ownership, and the space was misused by vested interests. The most important lesson I learned from this design process is that the public toilets need to be more fully embedded in the community they serve. We will try again—this is not an issue with which I have disengaged. Thank you very much, Rahul, for these observations about design and for sharing your stories with us.
Harvard South Asia Institute 87