Woloo launches its app on this Women’s Day to locate and use certified washrooms for women

Woloo, India’s first-of-its-kind startup, has launched a mobile application this International Women’s Day to help women locate and use the nearest Woloo washroom facility. To kick off operations, Woloo is offering free subscriptions to Mumbai’s female Covid-19 warriors as a mark of respect for their service. The complimentary subscriptions include easy access to a hygienic Woloo facility, certified by Woloo Assurance of Hygiene (WAH) for safety, hygiene & accessibility in association Toilet Board Coalition (TBC).

Currently operational in Mumbai, Woloo plans to expand its services to 10 key metros by the end of 2021 and reach 150 million women across 100 Indian cities in the next three years.

The Toilet Board Coalition is a global non-profit organization working on improving shared sanitation worldwide. Woloo and TBC will certify and help the hosts maintain the hygiene standards with WAH (Woloo Assurance of Hygiene) - A Global Star Toilet Standard Guide & Certification Initiative.

Backed by strategic investments from JetSynthesys, well known digital entertainment and technology company, the Woloo app is initially available on android and soon on iOS devices. It is powered with a robust tech stack making it a tech-savvy platform. At a monthly subscription of INR 99/-, Woloo subscribers can get access to a secure hygienic washroom.

Woloo is founded by a team of retail & IT professionals with a cumulative 60 years of global experience in consumer service & technology.

Manish Kelshikar, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Woloo said, “We are excited to launch the Woloo app that will now help women find WAH certified clean and safe Woloo washroom facilities around them. Our partnership with JetSynthesys has helped create a robust tech infrastructure for this first of its kind app that provides hygiene dignity to women in this country.”

Rajan Navani, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of JetSynthesys said, “At JetSynthesys we have always created and invested in social communities, be it 100MB for cricket or ThinkRight.me for meditation and mindfulness. Through this strategic investment, we aim to lend our technology expertise to Woloo to create a social solution that will empower women across India. We believe that access to hygienic sanitation facilities is a basic need but it’s also an area which probably has one of the widest access gaps in this country, especially for women. With Woloo, we hope to change that and ensure shared public sanitation facilities are safe, hygienic, and most importantly, easily accessible by women across the board.”

Despite having hundreds of washrooms built in recent times, the usability of the facilities remains a big challenge. 150 million working women suffer because of the lack of clean and hygienic public toilets in India. Studies say that every year, lack of common sanitation facility affects 2.5 million newly diagnosed ailments like UTIs, kidney stone every year. 48% rape cases are due to lack of safe public toilets for women.

In most Indian cities, though one can find free public toilets or paid Sulabh Sauchalayas, they are either unhygienic or unsecure. Women are caught in the middle and often have to find commercial establishments like cafes or malls to relieve themselves.

Woloo, a social startup initiative that aims to offer women hygiene dignity and make their everyday lives better.