Neha Pawar

Jharkhand State is on the journey of ensuring the National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL) accreditation of their laboratories and recently completed the accreditation of 29 labs in the state for water quality testing on a mission mode.

The context

Globally, over 3 billion people are at risk of disease because the water quality (WQ) of their rivers, lakes and groundwater is unknown, due to a lack of data.

According to the Global Water Quality Index, India ranks 120th out of 122 countries in water quality, its ability and commitment to improving it.

Healing traditions in India have withstood the test of time. Not many of us need to be taught to mix a pinch of haldi in a glass of milk to cope with sore throat, now famously known as turmeric latte, or to add a pinch of dry ginger to our tea when we catch a cold.

If you travel to rural India, you can find wall paintings near bus stands or compound walls of schools or walls of a Panchayat office adorned with messages.

If you are a practitioner, working in the areas of water and sanitation, it is likely that you are building capacities of different people. What if you had a simple but versatile tool that can help build awareness and capacities; that can surface questions and answers and do this for communities, government officials and CSOs?

One of the key goals of every participatory program on water and sanitation is the creation of awareness, leading to behavior change.

There is good evidence that frontline workers have proved to be gamechanger in the delivery of services like health and integrated child development services (ICDS).