Chennai, Jan 27 (BPNS)
S. Damodaran and his organization ‘Gramalaya’ are names that reverberate in several villages of South India that are now free of open defecation and the villagers consider him as their messiah who has saved them single-handedly from the trauma of open defecation.
Much before the NDA government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi commenced campaigning against open defecation, Damodaran, a Mcom graduate, the first graduate from a family of sculptors in Tamil Nadu’s Maruthur in Tiruchi district, has been into it.
The Government of India has recognized Damodaran with Padma Shri award for his untiring efforts to end open defecation, forming open defecation-free villages, and educating village girls with menstrual hygiene.
The 59-year-old had opened ‘Gramalaya’ way back in 1987 and was at first drawn to helping villagers move out of poverty but he soon found that open defecation, lack of drinking water, and proper education about hygiene were more important areas where his attention should be drawn to.
He developed the first open-defecation village in Thandavampatty in Tiruchi in 2003, the first such village in the country.
The crusader against open defecation has already worked towards making 600 villages and 200 slums fee of open defecation in South India and has built more than six lakh toilets.
Gramalaya and Damodaran have chipped in to build around 500 toilets in schools across South India and he is being honoured from across the country and abroad for his tireless efforts in ensuring that people don’t defecate in the open.
Damodaran while speaking to IANS said, “ It is a process and I have been into this since 1987 and we have created the first open defecation-free village at Thandavampatty in Tiruchi district of Tamil Nadu in 2003. This is the first such village in the entire country. We have already educated more than 2 lakh girl students in villages across Tamil Nadu and other South Indian states on the importance of menstrual hygiene.”
He is also into providing drinking water for the poor villagers by techniques of rainwater harvesting as well as recharging of wells and tanks that were lying unused in the villages of Tamil Nadu.
Damodaran said that he and Gramalaya have increased their focus on creating awareness about menstrual hygiene as well as on the need for nutritious food among the people.
