8 year-old daughter convinces her parents to build a toilet

• Parents pledge their gold to build a toilet

Moodbidri: Eight-year-old Kavya of Moodukonaje in Shirthady GP has finally achieved success in her aim to have a toilet at her home by persistently asking her parents to build a toilet and eventually convincing to build one.

Sheena-Leela is a couple living in Kudrail and of their two children Kavya is the youngest and is pursuing 3^rd std at the government primary school here. Inspired by the lesson cleanliness by a health activist, Kavya demanded with her parents to build a toilet. Some years back, the family had got their house with a thatched roof repaired and had to raise a loan of Rs 1.5 lakh for this purpose. Even then the issue of title deeds could not be sorted out. Hence the parents could not face the additional cost of building a toilet.

When they proposed the issue of constructing a toilet at the panchayat the answer they received was asking them why they can’t build a toilet when the house has already been built and given to them. Finally, persistent pestering of Kavya bore fruit when her parents pledge their gold and built a toilet and a bathroom at the cost of Rs 30,000.

“We have written to the ZP for the opportunity to build a toilet for the eligible under the employment guarantee scheme. I myself have visited houses within the limits of the panchayat and submitted a report identifying 117 houses without toilets. There is no appropriate scheme for the construction of the toilet for Sheena-Leela family through the panchayat. There is a wish to make our village a open defecation free village. That does not mean we have the aim of getting awards and appreciation based on false and fake information,” said Latha Hegde, president of Shirthady GP