water cleaner yohei kato pursuing ms in community development from the university of california davis worked with tata trust specifically the gender gap in education in most of these villages is leading to very acute programs he says the first was trying to reduce defecation rates in 11 villages surrounding the tata chemicals plant in babrala the madrassa had only two teachers but 350 students atul agrawal vice president corporate affairs of tata services said listening to the experiences of the interns from the 2015 batch of tata social internship programme has been a refreshing experience only 45 per cent of the houses in the villages have toilets the number of people everywhere i went was amazing one observation by baker is that people should not become reliant on outside help only when it stops coming do they consider its value and they all had many questions for me about myself and england often about why i wasnt married or why i ate meat boyds project had two main focus areas boyd says though people are aware of toilets they dont own one either because of the cost of building it or lack of awareness about its benefits as long as there is water coming out of their pumps people dont think there is a problem he assisted an ngo in the working of a madrassa in varanasi as part of his sixcity project baker who just finished his second year studying land economy at the university of cambridge was working with tcsrd in babrala high labour requirement and costs are the biggest hindrances in that way baker feels the second in the same area was to increase the access to clean drinking water and make sure that people were sanitising their water according to boyd rural india needs dedicated teachers and doctors on a lighter note boyd recalls since most of my questions for villagers pertained to water quality they often wanted me to try their water which i was convinced would make me sick then there were others who realised it was a very big problem away from the cities people were more closely knit on top of this i found them to be very funny and generous always offering tea working in a very rural area showed me the disconnect between urban and village livelihoods and culture boyd who is studying natural sciences physics was in india as part of the tata social internship and was interning at tata chemicals in uttar pradeshs babrala region andrew bakers experience in rural india was one he would never forget he says though baker loved his stay its a slow process to convince villagers to change any farming practices that they have been following for years he says fortunately it never made me ill edward boyd an msc student at university of cambridge saw india from a perspective other than that of a tourist when he got the opportunity to work in rural india last month