Gramalaya

Established in 1987, Gramalaya has been working in the areas of water, sanitation, and hygiene for more than 28 years. Gramalaya was established by a group of committed youths in the field of rural development. Gramalaya envisions a society in which all people have equal rights and access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities, hygiene and improved income status without gender discrimination. Gramalaya has implemented innovative models including individual household toilets, micro-finance for sanitation, hygiene, and health education, child-friendly toilets in schools, school health education, community pay-and-use latrines, promotion of women self-help groups among rural, urban, and tribal villages, and school health programs primarily across five states in South India. To date, Gramalaya has promoted more than 112,000 household toilets in South India through community-based organizations and micro-finance support for construction of household toilets to interested families. Gramalaya was instrumental in announcing India’s first village – Thandavampatti and India’s first slum – Kalmandhai as open defecation free. Gramalaya has established the National Institute of Water and Sanitation, a WASH training resource center approved by the government of India. Gramalaya believes that health development would accelerate the income of people and thereby economic development would take place, resulting in social development.