Dear Friends

UNICEF has initiated a project which plans to bring about behavioural change in sanitation practices of people around the country, particularly with regard to open defecation and menstrual hygiene practices.  Statistics show that every 1.2 seconds a child dies of unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) practices in India. Around 50 per cent of India’s cases of maternal and childhood under-nutrition are also because of unsafe WASH practices.

However, studies show that increase in infrastructure will not solve the problem unless there is behavioural change.

UNICEF’s strategy is based on the insight that faith based leaders have a greater chance of influencing behaviours than other entities including government and non-religious non-governmental  institutions. Consequently there is a plan to use this influence in bring about such mind-set change among the large percentage of people in the country who still indulge in unsafe hygienic practices.

My husband, Mr. Josantony Joseph, has been tasked with doing a quick mapping of major religious leaders across the country. It also involves mapping local religious leaders/centres in sampled districts along the Ganga corridor.

As the mapping has to be done in September/October itself, he is looking for those who can give him information of the following kind:

a)         Any contacts in the Ganga corridor who could help in identifying local religious leaders/centres during the field visits that will take place in the Ganga corridor in the second half of September, 2014 (starting from Sept. 10, 2014)

And / or

b)      Any information about important religious leaders in any faith across India thatyou know of (their names, contact details, geographical locations, degree and kind of religious influence)

Any information you can share would be highly appreciated. You can respond either to my own email address or his. These are

Dr. Helen Joseph : helenjoseph111@yahoo.com

Mr. Josantony Joseph: josantonyjoseph@gmail.com