New Toilet? No Toilet?
My work involves toilets nearly every day. Old toilets, leaking toilets. New toilets, cheap toilets and expensive toilets. I change toilets because they leak a little, or they’re chipped, or thought to be old fashioned. But spare a thought for those with no toilets. No toilets in homes or at work, no public toilets, no toilets anywhere. Imagine the mess and the inevitable disease.
It’s hard to imagine life without something we take so much for granted, but this is the daily reality for 2.6 billion people. A staggering 40 % of the world’s population do not have access to adequate sanitation. That’s about 2.6 billion people having to practice open defecation; urinating into rivers which lead to water borne diseases such as acute diarrhea, cholera and dysentery. Others resort to roadsides, buckets, plastic bags and open fields as their toilets. The eventual outcome – deaths.
The last taboo of talking about toilets has to be eradicated in order to give the toilet crisis the warranted attention. Everyone should have the right to have an access to a toilet anytime and anywhere. No one should die from not having a toilet.
Watch the video, then scroll down to make a difference.
A Few Toilet Health Facts
If an episode of diarrhoea lasts less than 14 days, it is acute diarrhoea. Acute watery diarrhoea causes dehydration and contributes to malnutrition. The death of a child with acute diarrhoea is usually due to dehydration. 2.2 million children under the age of 5 die from diarrhoea every year. That’s 1 child dying every 14 seconds. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. NOW
Lack of sanitation is the world’s biggest cause of infection. Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most occupy impoverished slums and shanty-towns with no sanitation facilities.
88% of cases of diarrhoea worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or insufficient hygiene. 90% of all deaths caused by diarrheal diseases are children under 5 years of age, mostly in developing countries.
At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.
The majority of the illness in the world is caused by fecal matter. Almost one-tenth of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Such improvements reduce child mortality and improve health and nutritional status in a sustainable way.
It is estimated that improved sanitation facilities could reduce diarrhea-related deaths in young children by more than one-third. If hygiene promotion is added, such as teaching proper hand washing, deaths could be reduced by two thirds. It would also help accelerate economic and social development in countries where sanitation is a major cause of lost work and school days because of illness.
Give A Toilet Where it’s Needed
We can make a difference by supporting the charities that work in developing countries to provide clean water and sanitation. A relatively small gift can make such a difference to communities.
Follow this link to the WaterAid Shop For Life where you can buy all sorts of toilet-related gifts, including a family toilet, and help stop avoidable deaths due to lack of sanitation.
http://shop.wateraid.org/products/Family Toilet
(Text courtesy of worldtoilet.org)