Less than a week ago, Asepsis launched a crowdfunding effort for the construction of 231 toilets for 231 families in Odisha, India. This effort will be the first step Asepsis is taking on it’s journey to redefine the way we see the sanitation crisis and how we solve it.
To do so, not only will we be reaching out to donors, but will be activating networks of artistic, creative, and passionate minds from a variety of backgrounds around the common theme of sanitation. And we’re doing this by launching a photo competition called the #ComingClean Challenge that will run in tandem with the crowdfunding campaign. The winner of this competition will join us on an all-expenses-paid trip to India to report on the work we have did with ASHA — illustrate what went right and what we can do better — and help us document the sanitation crisis more generally.
But more about the project first.
Our Work With ASHA
The large scale of this project will help make two villages in Odisha, India open defecation free. Working with our on-the-ground partner, ASHA (Association for Sanitation and Health Activities), we will cooperate with the community to improve sanitation through comprehensive and inclusive training programs that ensure long-term success. Our team met them in India this past summer and were instantly taken with the commitment and know-how of their staff. As a young organization looking to help do our part as quick as possible, we decided that working with the them would be the best possible way to do so.
Click here to help support our crowdfunding effort and learn more!
The #ComingClean Challenge
Asepsis understands that the sanitation crisis cannot be solved simply with the construction of toilets. Rather, we need to change the way we think about and interact with it. What we need is for the story of this social injustice to be told, for it to come to light and for the true depth of its impact to be fully grasped.
The #ComingClean Challenge will ask photographers from around the world to submit one photo that tells the story of any social injustice — anything from poverty to homelessness to racial-ethnic relations. The winner of this competition — as decided by a panel of judges comprised of Pulitzer Prize winners, journalists featured in major publications such as The New York Times, and some of the leading minds in human rights as well as social media outlets like Instagram and Facebook — will be able to accompany Asepsis on an all expenses paid trip to Odisha, India.
Why? Asepsis is committed to redefining the way we see the sanitation crisis. Like social injustices that plague communities around the world, it is in the refusal to talk about sanitation and keep it hidden from the public discourse that the greatest harm is done. The #ComingClean Challenge is meant to change this phenomenon by not only helping document the sanitation crisis with our partners ASHA, but by also shining a light on social injustices that exist around the world. This challenge will heighten the visibility of these issues and the photographers that were able to capture them, creating a powerful catalyst for change.
To view the sanitation crisis as a social injustice is to change the conversation to one that compels us to action. But it’s not difficult to see it as such. 2.4 BILLION people lack access to sanitation systems, 780 million still struggle to find clean water, and 2,200 children die of preventable, diarrheal diseases every single day. These numbers are staggering and constitute the classification of sanitation worldwide as not only a social injustice, but a humanitarian disaster.
And this humanitarian disaster, this social injustice on a massive scale needs to be documented. Asepsis is trying to do this in an innovative way, putting the tangible benefits of our crowdfunding effort and work with ASHA alongside a photo competition that will give photographers around the world an amazing opportunity to help tell the world a story they so desperately need to see and hear. And only then, can we begin #ComingClean.
To learn more about the #ComingClean Challenge, visit us at: http://www.asepsis.org/#coming-clean.
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