Abigail Brown

From September until December 2009, I completed an internship with Arghyam through my master's studies at Oregon State University to better understand gender, water, and sanitation in rural locations in South India.

This article shows how women are catalysts for advocating widespread improved sanitation and – at the same time – reap substantial benefits in a program promoted by an NGO called Gandhigram Trust. The empowerment of women and marginalized populations is a vital step in realizing gender equality – equal access, planning, and management – for water and sanitation.

Through a maze of winding, curving roads off a main highway in Tamil Nadu, one must travel to reach the small, agrarian village of Muthampatti.

Priyadarshini, or Priya to friends, wanders inquisitively around a large cement pad where a group of about thirty women and men are gathering to create a map of their village using a colored chalk powder called Rangoli.