Echoing Green NYC

Global Citizens, meet Global Citizen Ambassador Anoop Jain.

Apart from being the 2014 Waislitz Global Citizen Award winner, Anoop’s an all around cool guy. I’ll tell you why.

Anoop saw a problem: Over 650 million Indians defecate outside daily because they have no toilet which inhibits their ability to lift themselves out of poverty. To address this, he founded the non-profit organization Humanure Power (HP) in 2011 which builds community sanitation facilities that are free of charge. Oh, and get this- the waste HP collects is decomposed to form methane gas which then produces electricity that is used to power a water filtration system. Potable water is then distributed to the communities HP is working with at prices competitive with market rates. Talk about an overachiever.

So what are the implications of winning the Waislitz Global Citizen Award for Anoop and Humanure Power? Major street cred and a casual $100,000. And this funding couldn’t come at a better time.

Anoop accepting the Waislitz Global Citizen Award from Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans

Anoop explains that HP has just completed its first community sanitation facility in the Supal district of Bihar, one of India’s poorest states. Nearly 80 million of Bihar's 104 million residents defecate outside and in Supal almost 1.8 million people out of 2.2 million total residents, defecate outside. To address this issue it’s crucial that more sanitation facilities are built in the coming years.

Anoop explained,

“Scaling our work is essential to improving quality of life and health outcomes. We must continue working in solidarity with communities to facilitate an understanding of why using toilets is necessary. And then we need to go out and build more toilets. Winning this award is going to contribute directly to our effort of achieving this.”

He continued,

“I am so fortunate that the communities I work with trust me. That is something that takes a long time to establish. I am grateful that these communities allow me to represent them.”

I couldn’t be happier for Anoop, and cannot wait to see how many lives he transforms with the help from the Waislitz Global Citizen Award. However, I know he’ll be in good company as the rest of the finalists continue to do amazing, life changing work. David Auerbach, Swapnil Chaturvedi, and Nargis Shirazi all exemplify what it means to be a Global Citizen and I have no doubt they will continue to make the world a better place.

We’ll be checking in with Anoop periodically to see the impact that Humanure Power is having in Bihar, but until then I’ll leave you with these words from Anoop:

“By working together we hope to empower communities who have been overlooked and forgotten for generations. I think it is important to acknowledge that I am merely a messenger; the communities I work with should be the protagonists in affecting change for themselves.”

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Christina Nuñez

Editorial

Demand Equity

Our new ambassador Anoop Jain is someone you need to know

By Christina Nuñez