What's Our Story?

Chandan, Prabin, and Anoop met in New Delhi in the summer of 2010. Chandan and Prabin were colleagues at a Delhi-based non-profit at the time, but wanted to start their own organization in Bihar, where Chandan is from. They wanted to serve children in this community by providing them with health and education services. Anoop was introduced to Chandan and Prabin around this time as he was also hoping to start a public health effort in India. The three of them travelled to Bihar together to better understand what, if any, effort they could start. Conversations with community members, doctors, health workers, and government officials all pointed to inadequate sanitation as a major problem. Of the state's 104 million residents, approximately 80 million did not have access to a household toilet and were thus defecating in the open, the root cause of deleterious health, social, and economic outcomes. This information spurred Chandan, Prabin, and Anoop to start an organization that would improve access to sanitation for communities throughout rural India. Today, Chandan is SHRI's Chief Technical Officer, while Prabin is the organization's Director of Community and Government Relations. Anoop manages fund raising and long-term strategy.