Srinivasan Services Trust (SST) works across six development verticals to enable holistic village development, reaching communities through a wide-ranging health, education, livelihood and infrastructure footprint. In FY 25 alone, SST-operated medical centres conducted over 75,000 consultations, while more than 2,300 medical camps reached 1,000 villages and enabled 1.15 lakh consultations. Through interventions such as mobile medical vans in remote regions and school-based hygiene programmes covering 51 schools and over 9,000 students, SST’s Health vertical addresses preventive and primary healthcare at scale. Within this broader health mandate, sanitation is treated as a critical public health priority – forming the foundation for disease prevention, dignity and long-term wellbeing.
Vilankuppam village in Veerappanur panchayat, Tiruvannamalai district, Tamil Nadu, was identified as one such context requiring focused intervention. The village has 130 households and a population of 495 people. Agriculture and livestock rearing form the primary livelihoods, supported by three lakes that meet agricultural and domestic water needs. The village derives its name from the vilan maram, trees that continue to be part of the local landscape.
Despite access to drinking water connections and adequate space for toilet construction, sanitation outcomes in Vilankuppam were extremely poor prior to intervention. Of the 130 households, only four had toilets in usable condition. Open defecation was widely practised, leading to hygiene-related illnesses, contamination risks, and lack of privacy and safety – particularly for women and children during early mornings and nights. In several households, toilets were used for storage, reflecting behavioural gaps and limited awareness around sanitation.
In April 2024, SST initiated sanitation interventions in Vilankuppam under its Health vertical, adopting an approach that recognised sanitation as both an infrastructure and behaviour change challenge. To ground the intervention in local realities, SST conducted Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) exercises in January 2024, involving 71 villagers. Through social mapping, transect walks and focused group discussions, residents collectively mapped households, streets, water sources and sanitation practices. These discussions highlighted shared concerns around women’s safety, children’s health and the daily difficulties arising from the absence of functional toilets. The PRA also helped identify space for toilet construction and build collective readiness for implementation.
This was followed by a household baseline survey covering toilet availability, water access, space for construction and usage patterns. While the survey confirmed significant infrastructure gaps, it also revealed strong willingness among households to participate. Many families expressed readiness to contribute labour during construction, indicating early ownership of the process.
SST partnered with Gramalaya Trust to implement the sanitation initiative with clear objectives: achieving Open Defecation Free (ODF) status, ensuring consistent toilet usage, improving hygiene practices and establishing systems for long-term sustainability. A total of 130 SMART bath-attached toilets were constructed by SST in Vilankuppam, ensuring universal household access to safe sanitation.
Construction was closely linked with behaviour change interventions. Regular door-to-door awareness visits, community-led street plays and village-level hygiene sessions reinforced toilet usage and maintenance. Schools and the anganwadi were renovated, and hygiene education programmes were introduced so that children could practise and reinforce sanitation habits within their households.
Menstrual hygiene management was integrated as a key component of the intervention. Awareness sessions were conducted for women and adolescent girls, and reusable cloth pads were distributed to all families. This led to improved menstrual hygiene practices, reduced stigma and increased participation of women in sanitation-related decision-making. Male behavioural change also emerged as an important outcome, contributing to more consistent toilet usage.
To ensure continuity beyond implementation, a WASHMAN (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene, Menstrual Health and Nutrition) Committee was formed, comprising women from the village to monitor toilet usage, maintenance, hygiene practices and menstrual health awareness at the community level.
Today, Vilankuppam has achieved 97% toilet usage, measured through a combination of household-level follow-ups, regular usage checks by the WASHMAN Committee and periodic monitoring visits conducted as part of the programme’s review process. Usage data was tracked beyond construction to assess consistency, maintenance and behavioural adoption at the household level. As a result, the initiative has led to improved hygiene practices, increased safety and privacy for women, and reduced sanitation-related health risks.
Building on the learnings from Vilankuppam, SST has undertaken the horizontal deployment of this approach across Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. In partnership with Gramalaya, WaSH–MHM and ODF interventions are currently being implemented across 60 schools in tribal villages spanning Tiruvannamalai, Tirunelveli, Dharmapuri and Nilgiris districts in Tamil Nadu, along with clusters in Andhra Pradesh. These interventions integrate ODF initiatives, menstrual hygiene management, nutrition education and school-based hygiene programmes, reinforcing sanitation outcomes across households, schools and communities.
Through this horizontal deployment, SST is scaling a standardised yet context-sensitive sanitation model – strengthening sustainability, monitoring, and behaviour change across clusters while retaining community ownership at the village level.
