Toilet Garden – A Cafe In Ahmedabad Working For Gandhiji’s Dream Of Clean India!
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Sanitation problem and uncleanliness are some great problems faced by India for years. Father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi had dreamed about the clean India for which our Prime Minister Narendra Modi is currently working and has named the mission as ‘Clean India Mission’.
In a country where 600 million people defecate in the open, awareness about sanitation has still not made inroads everywhere. According to the most recent Swachhta Status Report of the National Sample Survey Office, in 2015, more than half of the rural population still defecated in the open —a major public health and sanitation problem.
While there are many cafes in the world, there are cafes in Taiwan which are focusing on Sanitation problems through the various cafe. Cafe known as ‘Toilet Garden’ is very known in Taiwan and surprisingly one such cafe is in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. The Toilet Garden is located in a building adjacent to Sabarmati Ashram.
The seeds for this great idea was laid years ago during India’s struggle for the Independence. Ishwarbhai Patel, then 10 years old, was surprised when his teacher, Gopal Dada, spoke in class about open defecation, manual scavenging, and the way the community that cleaned night soil was treated by the public.
In the late 1950s, after Ishwarbhai graduated from college, he began to work to change the lives of thousands of sanitation workers and was soon recognized as ‘Mr. Toilet’.
The cafe is open twice a week, mainly for events organized by the ashram or the Safai Vidyalaya, says Madhusudhan, a volunteer at the Toilet Garden.
The cafe works on a pay-and-use concept on its head; you’re paid Rs 2 for your poop. The greenery and cemented floors serve as the backdrop to the numerous commodes and latrines that invite you to come ease yourself and enjoy a cup of steaming hot coffee.
We hope that more such cafe comes into existence in India and it becomes a chain like it has become in Taiwan.
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