It has been discovered that in China, India and Indonesia, twice as many people are dying from diarrhoea than from HIV/AIDS. In India about 772 million people do not have a private place to answer the call of nature. Consequently, fields, bushes, roadside and railway tracks are being used for defecation with serious consequences for health and environmental well being. The Government of Maharashtra, India, asked us to motivate mostly illiterate villagers and tribals to take pride in owning a personal toilet and get them to change their unhygienic habit of defecating in the open. Our idea was simple: a competition for sanitation.

We decided to motivate communities to participate in the sanitation project. Keeping in mind the low literacy levels of the target audience, visual materials were created using tribal art forms totally devoid of words. TV commercials were developed in folk languages. Street plays and folk songs were created. Famous celebrities from Indian cinema and sports were roped in to persuade people.