Living Standards

Supporting communities through housing, sanitation, water and hygiene

Decent housing provides safe and secure homes and encompasses much more than four walls. It also implies access to clean water and sanitation, safe drinking water and a supply of energy for cooking and heating the home. A lack of these important facilities can lead to illness and disease and can hinder economic development, as time must be spent merely struggling to perform daily tasks instead of pursuing income-generating activities. Communities in our supply chain face such issues and that is why we focus on improving housing, sanitation, water and hygiene.

112,393

people reached by hand washing and hygiene programmes

6,637

people gained access to clean drinking water

7,030

gained access to sanitary latrines

29,800

people adopted clean cookstoves

Meet Anju

Anju is a tea plucker in Darjeeling. She used to wake up at 3.00am every day and wait in line for up to an hour to fetch water. Through our programme in Darjeeling, Anju now has access to clean water and sanitation.

“Now there is a continuous supply of water and the water point is so near to my house that my family is able to wash, clean and take regular baths”.

Meet Raghuram

Raghuram lives with his wife on a tea estate in Assam, north India; he is a temporary worker and she is permanent. Raghuram’s family use to have a traditional cooking stove in their home, which “had turned black and I used to have a coughing problem from the smoke it produced…” He heard about our Clean Cookstoves project in partnership with Mercy Corps and soon bought one – he hasn’t looked back!

Sanitation in Assam

In 2017 we started an exciting new two-year project in partnership with Mercy Corps and three prominent producer companies in Assam, India, to improve the sanitation situation across several tea estates.