Episode 116: Strengthening Systems in the Service of Underserved Communities with Anoop Jain ’09

Anoop Jain

Anoop Jain ’09, founding director of Sanitation and Health Rights in India (SHRI), has always had a deep sense of social justice. As a Northwestern student he observed how the most vulnerable of New Orleans' population was disproportionality impacted by Hurricane Katrina. And later on a trip to Guatemala as part of Alternative Student Breaks, he found himself deeply impacted by working in fellowship and breaking bread with communities there. Later, after graduating Northwestern, he fundraised for the creation of a soup kitchen in the Himalayas. The culmination of these experiences resulted in Jain quitting his job, and traveling to India to work with organizers and community activists to provide direct support to underserved communities in India. During this time he realized that he was working at the intersection of social justice and public health, and that the issue of sanitation in the rural parts of India were not individual problems, but systems failures. The reframing of sanitation as a result of inadequate systems and not individual behavior was a paradigm shift that led Jain to earn his MPH and DPH so he could help implement those upstream changes.

On this episode of Northwestern Intersections, Jain shares how he founded Sanitation and Health Rights in India, and how he is committed to the service of underserved communities in India. Jain tells us how the mission of SHRI, in addition to building sanitation facilities, is evolving to focus on strengthening systems and provisions to be as robust as possible in order to provide the highest quality sanitation services. He underscores the importance of marrying academic rigor and understanding of issues with the component of practice. As well as elevating the voices of the communities you serve so they can shape the questions and the research that will create the policy that impacts their quality of life.