That day in the slums was very powerful – this is where I belong

That day in the slums was very powerful – this is where I belong

9 July 2014

TOILETS – not the most glamorous of subjects but Tara McCartney is passionate about them.

We may have a vague idea of what a lack of them means for developing countries but most of us would rank the whole food and water problem higher.

But for Tara the no toilet situation is central to so many of society’s ills in India — a country that transfixed her on holiday three-and-a-half years ago. It is ruining the education of children, she says, and leading directly to the sexual assault of women.

After three days of being intoxicated by its sights and smells, the Newcastle woman officially fell in love with India as she sat in the slums of Jaipir with the family of her driver, who warmly shared the little they had with her.

So affected was the 41-year-old that she gave up a lucrative career in the corporate world to set up the ‘United for Hope’ charity. It is currently working in Tirmasahun, a farming village in the state of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India.

Uttar Pradesh made international headlines recently following the rape and murder of two young girls. Local police have since been quoted saying that in parts of the state 95 per cent of cases of sexual assault take place when women leave their homes to “answer a call of nature”.

Although Tara is now convinced she is where she is meant to be in life, she wasn’t always sure what she wanted to do — or where she wanted to be.

Educated at Assumption Grammar School in Ballynahinch, where she maintains close connections, and St. Patrick’s Grammar School, Downpatrick, she went on on to study anthropology and philosophy at Queen’s University.

“Most of my 20s I spent travelling around the world and experiencing life in Asia, Australia, New Zealand and the States,” said Tara, who even worked in a circus at one stage of her travels, as her grandfather did before her.

“There is a bit of the adventurer in the blood. I had no thoughts of a career until I was in my 30s.”

She admits her 20s were “hedonistic” but this was no extended gap year. The first in her family to go to university, Tara said she simply wanted to see the world and worked hard along the way. In her 30s she met and married a German man, though they are now divorced, and enjoyed the trappings of working for major companies such as Microsoft, Fujitsu and Deutsche Telekom.

“I had my corporate decade,” she said. “These were really boom times for the economy within Europe. This was nice for 10 years.

“But you have to further your career, you are working long hours and you are not making the world a better place. It does not feel meaningful.”

It was within that context that she made her first trip to India and her life was changed forever.

“I was on holiday with a friend of mine who owns Downpatrick Post Office, Gareth Latus,” she explained. “He sends parcels to the village and pens and pencils. He is very good.

“I totally and absolutely fell in love with the country on that trip and I have travelled a lot. India and Ireland have a lot of similarities. That sense of ancientness. The family, the music, the religion.

“I loved everything. You come out of the aeroplane and you just get a wave of the sounds, the sights, the smells. For the first three days it was about the adrenaline, it was cultural shock.

“Poverty is everywhere in India. You do not even have to go to the slums, it is everywhere. That fourth day in the slums, it was a very powerful, magical experience. I said, ‘this is where I belong’. It happened very, very quickly and that stage it was just quite a general idea of what I was going to do.”

The seed that was planted grew into United for Hope in 2013 and in February 

Tara oversaw the successful completion 

of the first phase of their project. Toilets were installed and constructed for 25 families in Tirmasahun, with the village donating 10 per cent of the costs to encourage a sense of ownership.

The goal is to make the entire village free of open defecation, and all the resulting health problems, in the near future and to create open spaces for people to gather and where children can play safely.

Solar street lamps were also installed to cast light throughout the centre of the village to make it safer. The charity is also undertaking building and repair work in the village’s two neglected schools, where only 10 per cent of children are in secondary education. Long term they want to oversee teacher training and support.

Overall, nearly 800 million people in India, or 64 per cent of the population, are without basic sanitation, and Tara is particularly passionate about providing sanitation for women.

“Lack of toilets create a drastic security risk for women who frequently face sexual harassment, as they seek privacy in dark and isolated areas,” she explained.

“In Tirmasahun only 500 of the 2500 people have access to a toilet. That’s 2000 people having to go into the surrounding fields everyday.

“Women suffer the greatest hardship and indignity.”

She said women often suffered infection due to poor sanitary practices and often ped out of school when they hit adolescence.

“They are embarrassed,” she said. “They do not want to go the toilet in front of the boys. They would rather stay at home and be private.

“Getting toilets for the women is my biggest priority.”

During sowing and harvesting, the fields are out of bounds, she explains and women often face a walk of over an hour. Darkness gives the women cover and a degree of privacy, she explained, but it also makes them more vulnerable.

“I spoke to a woman who received a toilet and she told me that now that she has a toilet, she feels that her poverty has been halved,” she said. “That gives me motivation.”

And next on her list of things to do in Tirmasahun is simply more toilets. Tara is aware she is tackling one small piece of a major problem but she says it is something that is starting to be taken seriously at government level in India.

“The new prime minister is under a lot of pressure about the toilet situation,” she said. “He has upped awareness by saying he wants ‘toilets before temples’. India has a craze for building temples.”

The temple building gives rise to a question many people ask Tara. Aren’t there plenty of rich people in India? Can’t they sort the problems out?

“I hear this a lot — there are many rich people in India why are they are not doing more?” she said. “They should be doing more. Things are the way they are. Just as there are rich people in Africa who wage war and build palaces they cannot afford.

“This does not help me and my village. I am working at the practical end.”

Tara keeps close connections to home and her ‘30th anniversary’ Assumption friends recently held a ‘Pop House Arts’ concert in honour of her charity. Last month they also held a fundraising draw to support her work.

To find out more about United for Hope’s work visit their website at www.unitedforhope.org, where you can also make a donation. Alternatively visit them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/unitedforhopeNGO