Plumbing and Sanitation Leader IAPMO India lends support to Woloo, a revolutionary app that increases women’s access to safe public toilets.
Mumbai, India (January 30, 2022): The International Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Foundation (IWSH), the non-profit arm of International Association of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) India, has lent support to Woloo, a startup company whose app aims to improve access to clean, safe and hygienic public toilets for urban women in India.
It is available on Android devices and soon to be rolled out to iOS. The app helps women locate the nearest wash-room when they are away from their home or office. The initiative is supported by IAPMO India’s Start-Up Sahay program. It aims to promote Indian startups creating innovations in water, sanitation, hygiene, plumbing, and environmental technologies.
Clean and hygienic sanitation facilities are still inaccessible to many women in India. They comprise more than 48% of the country’s population. Studies show that 50% of Indian women face difficulties in accessing toilets. This problem exacerbates the fact that only 20% of public toilets are made for use by women. Many of these toilets remain unused due to the lack of proper hygiene standards and unsafe conditions.
The mission of Woloo, is to respond to this urgent need. It does so by providing world-class access to hygiene facilities for women of all ages and diversities across India. Woloo opened its first facility in Thane on November 19, 2019 — World Toilet Day.
Woloo-enabled Wash-room
Each Woloo-enabled wash-room follows a standard protocol to ensure safety, cleanliness and hygiene. The protocol finds basis on guidelines developed by the Toilet Board Coalition. This is a global non-profit enterprise, and the Woloo Assurance of Hygiene (WAH), based on safety, hygiene and accessibility parameters. Restaurants, fast food outlets, cafes, or any other business outlet can become a Woloo host. This happens after they go through a screening process and upgrade their existing wash-room according to Woloo’s hygiene checklist. They are then certified, geo-tagged and integrated on the Woloo app.
Currently, Woloo maintains more than 1,200 wash-rooms across Mumbai and Pune with plans to expand to other Indian cities.
Woloo Powder Rooms
In addition to the certified wash-rooms, Woloo is also introducing Woloo Powder Rooms. These are comprehensive women-oriented facilities which are equipped with smart toilets, a café, and a retail outlet with women-centric products. Woloo’s first Powder Room Lounge launched today at the Ghatkopar Metro station. It is a 1,000-square-foot facility with eight smart toilets, a 14-seat café and a 600-square-foot retail area. It caters to women’s hygiene, personal care, intimate utility and beauty products.
- In association with Mumbai Metro One, the facility was inaugurated today at 11:00 am by Mr. Quaiser Khalid, Railway Police Commissioner.
- Dignitaries like Colonel Shubhodoy Mukherjee (Chief Executive Officer – Mumbai Metro One Pvt. Ltd.), Shyamantak Choudhury (Business Head – Mumbai Metro One Pvt. Ltd.), and Atul Patne (Commissioner, Fisheries Department) attended the event. They were given an exclusive preview of the facility.
- Through the Start-up Sahay program, IAPMO India and IWSH donated funding for 1,000 annual subscriptions to the Woloo app for women members of Mumbai’s Railway police force (access to Woloo is currently available for INR 99 monthly or INR 365 annually). They are also contributing towards a public relations campaign promoting the Woloo Powder Room in the Ghatkopar Metro station in Mumbai.
- With the support of partners like Ashirvad Pipes, Cera India and A.O. Smith India, IAPMO India also donated safe and certified quality toilet hardware to Woloo.
Interface of Woloo App.
Woloo’s Mission
“Woloo’s mission is to provide hygiene dignity to a diverse group of women of all ages in India,” said Woloo Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Manish Kelshikar. “Our partnership with IWSH and IAPMO India will certainly help in raising the standards of shared sanitation in India to world-class benchmarks. IWSH, IAPMO and its partners, and Woloo will work together and build trust in shared and public sanitation.”
“Lack of access to improved sanitation, especially out of the home, for women has remained a difficult problem to solve, leading to immense anxiety on one hand and continuing a high burden of disease on the other,” said Dr. Nimish Shah, Managing Director of IAPMO India Pvt. Ltd. “There are very few sustainable models that have successfully solved this problem. Woloo is a promising women’s hygiene and sanitation access platform that is taking this challenge head on. IWSH and IAPMO India are proud to partner with Woloo in its mission to provide safe, clean and hygienic sanitation access for women. We believe that quality, certified hardware underpins the durability of improved sanitation, and Woloo powder rooms are perfect venues to demonstrate well-designed, hygienic public toilets.”
About IAPMO India
IAPMO India Private Limited (known as IAPMO India) was founded in 2007 with offices at Bengaluru and Pune. IAPMO India and the Indian Plumbing Association (IPA) began, and continue to foster, a strong and essential partnership to better provide for the plumbing industry. This partnership led to the creation of the latest and most comprehensive plumbing codes for India. It also led to creating training and education programs for code-based plumbing installations and maintenance in India. This team of experts also developed a water-efficient ratings scheme. This has since published and implemented this scheme across India to help reduce water usage through efficient fixtures.
In response to the plumbing industry’s enormous demand and growth of services, IAPMO India has also incorporated mechanical and product certification into its suite of services. The combination of these three core competencies together — plumbing, mechanical, and product certification — completes the circle for an all-encompassing system that combines state-of-the-art codes and standards with a certification body ensuring that products comply with the necessary performance standards. IAPMO’s globally recognized mark of conformity and certification program is the trusted, and endorsed mark for plumbing and mechanical products within India.
About Woloo
With a vision to provide hygiene dignity, Woloo brings a tech-enabled loo-discovery platform app that helps women to locate the nearest wash-room within 2 Km radius, whenever they are away from their home or office. The Woloo App is currently available on Android as well as IOS devices.
1200 + wash-rooms on Woloo app from Mumbai & Pune hosted by restaurants/cafes (Woloo Hosts) have to go through a screening process or upgrade their existing wash-room according to Woloo’s hygiene checklist before they are certified, geo-tagged and integrated on the Woloo app.
These hosts are certified in association with the Toilet Board Coalition (A global non-profit enterprise working under World Bank to improve sanitation standards across 40+ countries) and the Woloo Assurance of Hygiene (WAH) based on safety, hygiene, and accessibility parameters. Woloo Assurance of Hygiene (WAH) is the symbol of commitment to every Woloo customer to provide Safe, Hygienic & Accessible wash-rooms. Woloo mobile app goes beyond locating nearby loos, by providing its users the facility to set ‘Thirst Reminders’, ‘Shop’ for women-centric products online, read interesting ‘Blogs’ & be a part of a ‘Community’. In addition to the certified wash-rooms hosted by Woloo-Hosts, Woloo also caters to ‘Woloo Powder Rooms’, which are equipped with hygienic, clean, and safe toilets for women along with the facility to change baby diapers, a Café for a quick breather or a bonding session with the besties, and a store that sells women-centric products.
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