This Street Art project was part of an initiative ‘Project Raahat’ by a group of enterprising college students from Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies (SSCBS) in collaboration with Delhi Street Art in a slum in Sultanpuri, New Delhi.
‘Project Raahat’ was started with an intention to eradicate open defecation and provide safe sanitation facilities to the urban slum dwellers of Delhi. The project founders come up with innovative measures for management of toilet complexes, incorporate aesthetic modification and sensitise people on healthy sanitary practices. The idea sprung from an older project called ‘Sanitary Solutions’ in which they were educating people living in slums about healthy and hygienic practices like the use of sanitary napkins, etc.
Geetanjali was part of Delhi Street Art’s team for this particular project who took up the job of painting bold visuals on the walls of the recently inaugurated public toilet. The intention was to send the message across to the slum dwellers in a more personalised manner and extend out an invitation for them to start using the toilet facilities. The process of painting the walls attracted a lot of attention from the passerbys and encouraged conversations around the disadvantages of open defecation.
The ideas for the walls included witty Bollywood slogans of pop culture icons like Amitabh Bachchan on the walls; bright and vivid in colour, you could see Gabbar Singh saying, ‘Basanti, khule mein na jaa’ (Basanti, don’t defecate in the open) on one of the walls.
Top Image and Text Source : The Better India
Dreamwoven Collective 