Sulabh International

An Indian sanitation and social reform organization founded in 1970 in the state of Bihar by Bindeshwar Pathak, which grew to become the largest nonprofit organization in India, run with the help of around 50,000 volunteers. Sulabh's central technical innovation is the Sulabh Shauchalaya, a scavenging-free, two-pit pour-flush toilet, which the organization pairs with waste treatment systems that turn human waste into biogas and biofertilizer; it operates a network of pay-and-use public toilet complexes used by an estimated ten million people every day, providing sanitation access in places, particularly Indian cities, where household toilets remain out of reach for many residents. Beyond building and operating toilets, Sulabh runs education and vocational training programs aimed at people from poor families, especially former manual scavengers, to prepare them for work in the open job market, work the organization credits with making 240 Indian towns scavenging-free and creating around 35,000 direct jobs; the United Nations granted Sulabh special consultative status, Pathak received the 2009 Stockholm Water Prize, and the organization jointly received the 2016 Gandhi Peace Prize.