Suresh-bhai
Parmar
Limited knowledge of healthy sanitation practices, and low understanding of
the impact of sanitation has led to the spread of uncleanliness and disease.
Sureshbhai’s approach to spreading the message of sanitation, involves a trio
of – knowledge, love and immersion. Knowledge of sanitation practice, love for
the people receiving the service, immersion in their lives by becoming a part
of them rather than being an outsider.
He is on the
road 15-20 days each month visiting two to three villages, spending atleast 4-5
days in each village, sharing his knowledge, talking to the villagers about
sanitation, learning about their problems and working on solving them. His
faithful companion is the Nandini
van, a mobile sanitation-education unit that he drives from village to village.Nandini is Shree Ishwar Patel's brainchild who was the mentor of sureshbhai.
Suresh Bhai’s
journey started with a seed from within – one which prompted him to study
Social work and Philosophy during his Masters at Gujarat Vidyapeeth. He calls
it ‘Gandhi’s campus’ for the Gandhian values it is built around J Life took a fortunate turn when he was assigned to an NGO called
Manav Sadhna for his 45-day internship. Manav Sadhna gave him the opportunity
to be in the presence of two stalwarts of service – Ishwar bhai Patel and
Jayesh bhai Patel. Ishwar Patel was the founder of the Environmental and
Sanitation Institute, located in Ahmedabad. The father-son duo of Ishwar bhai
and Jayesh bhai have been working for years designing toilets, training
sanitation volunteers and so on for several years. The area of work, the extent
of involvement, and the approach towards service had a profound influence on
Suresh bhai. From Ishwarbhai and Jayeshbhai he learned of the KAP therapy –
knowledge, attitude and practice.
His internship
involved work in Gujarat’s largest slum area, where 50 homes were assigned to
him for ‘practice’; to help the members of these families clean toilets, learn
about sanitation practices and build new toilets or other sanitary facilities.
This was difficult for him at first; especially hearing from his classmates
about their internships, which primarily involved desk jobs, he felt depressed
and nervous. However, with the help of the ESI community, he changed inwardly
to view it as God’s work. He began building a rapport with the families in the
50 homes he was assigned to, and treating them as honored recipients of his
service. He began helping them with tasks that they needed done around the
house or farm, and taking care of them. In time he was eating with them almost
every day, not as a volunteer but simply as a family member, one of their very
own. In turn, this caused a shift in them and they too, began paying more
attention to his words about sanitation and about building new toilets. Towards
the end of the 45-day internship, he had helped build clean toilets in 42 of
the 50 homes he had been assigned to. With the completion of the internship
came an important realization – once a
relationship beyond a giver-receiver (give-and-take) was formed, people began
to listen more, and the impact was a natural outcome.
After the
internship, he then went back home to North Gujarat, where his family lives.
His father is a farmer, and his mother is a housewife. He realized that he
wanted to continue the work he started in ESI, and wanted to dedicate his life
towards that, while not neglecting his family. Refusing a more cushy government
job, he shared these goals with his parents and wife, who at first expected him
to return to their village and continue their ancestral occupation of farming.
However, seeing his zeal and being convinced that this path led to both
internal practice and external service, they gave their blessing. His wife, who
he had first met at Gujarat Vidyapeeth, understood his heart and agreed to stay
with his parents and serve the family while he traveled. They now have a 2
year-old daughter. Suresh bhai lives in his village about 5-10 days a month,
and travels to various other villages and Ahmedabad the remainder of the month.
Suresh bhai continues to use his work to
sow seeds of generosity in hearts. He sees his work not as merely connecting to
sanitation, but that of joining hearts. He connects the mind-oriented attitude
of more-educated volunteers with the heart-oriented attitude of the people
among villages, creating vibrations of good between various communities and
social classes. In spite of many difficulties, social and financial, he
continues to stick to his motto of ‘love all, share all’, and throws his heart
into any work available in any space. Small but intangible connections form,
which have manifested as love and blessings from across the world, from all the
people who have felt their own selves expand as they connected with other
through this lokmitra.
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