Our Story

We empower youth to take the health of their community into their own hands.

Haath Mein Sehat started in 2004 as a collaborative project between students from the University of California, Berkeley and the Mahila Mandals (women’s groups) of Behrampada—a slum community in the Bandra East district of Mumbai, India. The Behram Mahila Mandals had identified poor water quality as one of the biggest drivers of enteric disease in the community and, recognizing the need for a comprehensive approach, UC Berkeley students started implementing a variety of solutions, including: a hygiene education program, systematic water quality testing, and the development of economically viable point-of-use (POU) water treatment methods.

HMS, as a student-run idea lab, continued to develop and iterate several WASH interventions with the help of many local partners. It even expanded into Hubli in 2007 at the invitation of the Deshpande Center for Social Entrepreneurship. By 2010, HMS had

  • prototyped 3 safe water storage devices and conducted user preference studies
  • developed the Passive Latrine Use Monitor (PLUM) and conducted device evaluation studies in rural areas surrounding Hubli and Bhubaneswar
  • organized many public skits/demonstrations on proper hygiene practices and water treatment methods
  • promoted the stocking of Safewat (a chlorine-based water disinfectant solution) among community pharmacists for sale to impoverished families
  • mobilized hundreds of local college volunteers for its Hygiene Education and Water Quality Testing programs
  • tracked water contamination in slum communities from source to storage and then to consumption; compiled an ethnographic account of water use and treatment
  • designed and completed a trial run of a PhotoVoice project among secondary school students
  • … and much more.
However, in 2011, HMS began an important transition. Its core team realized the need for a India-based organization that could direct and scale well-established efforts across several years. With the help of its stakeholders, Project Manager, and volunteers, HMS split into two entities: an Indian non-profit organization that would scale proven solutions and a UC Berkeley-based organization that would continue to research and develop innovations to be implemented in the future.

Currently, Haath Mein Sehat, a Karnataka-registered non-profit society, primarily focusses on empowering Hubli’s youth to become aware of and act on public health disparities in their community. We aim to

  • provide water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure, accompanied by behavior change-oriented programs, to all Hubli government schools within five years
  • provide youth, in Hubli and abroad, the opportunity to be an instrumental part of bettering a community
  • build and leverage a formidable network that can instigate changes to city policies
  • advertise local impacts globally to demonstrate that change is possible when like-minded people act