This is the story of a very poor and illiterate person from the Mohaniya block of Mamadev village in Kaimur District,  who is a shepherd. The person in question is Manraj Singh Kushwaha, who is in his fourth stage of life but is endowed with the energy of a young man. He lives in the village with his old wife. He has two sons, but both have moved out. Then Manraj arranged for a buffalo and started his livelihood by getting into the dairy business.

Till some time ago, there was no toilet in Manraj’s house, so he had to go outside for defecation. The Swachh Bharat Mission team came following the government’s decree of not defecating in the open which was being widely publicized. First, efforts were made by the government to ODF the block and then the district. To construct toilets, financial assistance was also provided by the government, but the cost of toilet construction was increasing, which caused the  construction work to progress at a  slow pace.

Manraj sometimes thought about whether the toilet would be built on time or not. One day, Upendra Kumar from FINISH Mondial team  met him and explained in detail about the diseases and social malaise caused by defecating in the open. Upendra’s words made sense to him. But Manraj explained his financial hurdles and expressed his anguish. During the course of the conversation, it was revealed that he was associated with the livelihood group. Upendra then explained to him that he could take money from the livelihood group as a loan. Then gradually he could repay it in the form of installments. Along with this, Upendra also explained the way to build a safe toilet with two soak pits, which is technically correct and low cost. This path also appealed to Manraj. By taking money from the group, he was now very happy to build a toilet as of date.

He thanked Upendra for showing the way. Now he himself explains to people the importance of toilets. The FINISH team had explained that cleanliness had been a part of our culture. They had also explained that when you have to defecate in the open while grazing buffalo on the paths and ridges of fields, then how much difficulty his old lady must have to face in the darkness of the night. Convinced, Manraj consulted with his old lady and then used the loan received for group business for toilet construction. Today, this couple does not go out for toilet and are repaying the loan taken initially for dairy business and are also teaching others to “construct a toilet saying cleanliness means everyone’s well-being”. ”