Channel 4's Indian Winter season

As Channel 4 launches its Indian Winter season, including a not-to-be-missed airing of the multi-award winning film Slumdog Millionaire, learn more about WaterAid's work to bring safe water, hygiene education and sanitation to 10 states across India...

To coincide with Indian Winter season, WaterAid has released a new report about the humiliating practice of manual scavenging, which is still common in India.

Much of our work in the country focuses on urban slums - in settings similar to those the film depicts. However, the people we work with don't have a chance to win the jackpot and chance their way out of poverty.

A woman makes her way over a rubbish-filled stream in a slum in Digha, Maharaajgani.

Credit: WaterAid/John Spaull

Their living conditions are squalid and, as increasing numbers of people move to cities in search of work, slums get bigger and the poor are pushed further to the periphery.

Without legal right to their land, slum-dwellers lack rights to basic access to clean water and sanitation, having a huge impact on the health, education and prosperity of some of India’s poorest and most excluded citizens.

Get a taste of the real India with this slideshow:

WaterAid has been working in India since 1986 and in 2009 alone worked to get 150,000 people in India access to clean water and 85,000 access to sanitation.

This not only means toilets and water, but kids going to school and getting an education because they’ve not fallen prey to waterborne diseases, and women who are able to work and support their families because they don’t have to spend hours collecting water or looking after sick family members.

Useful links

• Read about our new report on manual scavenging in India
  
• Watch "Women: agents of change" film 
  
  
• More information about our work in India 
  
  
• Our work around the globe
  
  
• Make a donation to WaterAid 
  
  
• Take action with WaterAid