This is the story of a small village of district Hardoi, Shivala Kheda wherein reside all of 14 families.  The village is part of Gram Panchayat Rampur Bhagati which is barely 7 kms from the Block Hq of Behandar. The overall population of the village is roughly 150 people, and 90% of the families can be called marginal farmers. When FINISH Society approached this village the condition of sanitation in the village was appalling, to say the least. Dung heaps were piled up in a mess for at least 3 to 5 years, and plastic waste was strewn all across the village.

When FINISH Society team in concert with DCM Shriram Foundation approached them and discussed the harm caused by plastic waste and briefed them about the impact of the current state of affairs, everyone made an effort to understand the problem but had no options to deal with this menace. Dhanpati, the  Village headwoman took the lead in plastic waste management, and with her motivation the girls of the village commenced a  huge cleanliness drive for plastic waste. They put in place a plastic bag in every household for the collection of domestic  plastic waste as a holding exercise and rid the streets of this problem. However, the heaps of dung that had collected on the wayside had become an age-old habit and any effort to treat the same and convert them into organic manure met with stiff resistance. Despite briefing  the farmers of the village many times about how to initiate the process of composting the dung with the help of bio decomposer and briefing them that the dung  releases harmful green gases, it had little or no effect.

While plastic waste management started in right earnest thanks to the girls and the FINISH team along with the residents managed to segregate 100% plastic waste, but the reluctance to use  bio decomposer to produce organic manure still posed a serious challenge. A group meeting was conducted in the village where almost 15 farmers, including men and women participated. but no one got ready except one farmer named  Buddha Pal.

Buddha Pal, being a very polite and forthright man  started to segregate his biodegradable and plastic waste correctly in Plastic Holdings. After this, he started to prepare  compost from the biodegradable waste with the help of WD solution. Other farmers kept a sharp view of the overall proceedings and saw that within  20 days he succeeded in segregating all-household waste and with the help of WD solution, prepared compost from the biodegradable waste.  After seeing this, two other farmers  Munna Pal and Sri Pal followed suit and  were surprised to see a huge quantity of dung heap getting composted in a very short period of time. Now these 3 farmers not only use their compost for farming but have also began to sell the extra compost to other farmers. Since most of the farm work is done by the females of the family so from that moment on,  the ladies took charge. After seeing the success of this change in mindset, other villagers also changed and as of date everyone has put up a plastic holding bag on their houses, and every villager has begun to spray  WD solution on the dung heaps. Today, organic farming has become the order of the day.

After that, all villagers get together organize an event for mass cleaning from time to time. Now because they understand the benefit of a clean society they are aware of their responsibilities due to which the once dirt-stained village has transformed into a colourful one. This village is now a model village which showcases the area’s cleanliness