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Bezwada Wilson - Magsaysay Award winner anta.


lazybugger

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How Bezwada Wilson Liberated Lakhs Of Manual Scavengers In India

http://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/07/27/how-bezawada-wilson-liberated-lakhs-of-manual-scavengers/

The story begins in 1986. That was the year when Wilson finished school in Karnataka's Kolar district. He decided to volunteer to teach children in his sweepers' colony. He found that there was a high drop-out rate among the students.

 

Why did you dropout?

"Our parents are alcoholic, they don't want to send us to school."

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He asked the parents: "Why do you drink day and night and not spend on your children's education?" "We drink because our work is such." "What is your work?" "Cleaning toilets." "But why does it make you drink?" "Our working conditions are bad."

 

What did they mean by bad working conditions? Why do they make them drink alcohol? Or was it all just an excuse?

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Wilson wanted to see it from himself, but they won't let him. He followed them on the sly and found them picking up human excreta from dry latrines and putting them in buckets. One karmachari's bucket fell into a pit of human excreta and he put his hands in there to pick up the bucket. Wilson pushed him away. "What are you doing? Let me do my job," the manual scavenger shouted back.

"That day I cried for the first time," Wilson said. He went home and told his retired parents about it. He was in for more surprise. "This is what your parents did all their lives," they told him.

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Wilson has now moved to making lives better for those who work to clean sewage lines and septic tanks, often leading to deaths. With determination, humour and all-round goodwill, there is little doubt he will succeed.

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