What would you do if you didn’t have a loo?

It kind of seems weird that we have a global day about toilets doesn’t it? Call it a toilet, ‘the bathroom’, outhouse, loo, choo or washroom we get the picture.

Just last week I was watching a documentary on how toilets evolved into what we now know them to be and how different cultures do ‘their business’. Nothing like a late night doco to inspire a blog!

The fact is that 2.5 BILLION (yes I said billion) people do not have access to a clean and safe toilet. That’s a whole wad of people who have to find another way to keep their dignity while performing normal bodily functions.

The number one reason girls don’t go on to secondary education is that they don’t have access to single sex toilets. As soon as they hit puberty they need a safe, clean area but this is rare. Teenage girls who need to go to the bathroom are often harassed by males in the area. This leaves them open to sexual abuse and rape. These girls are more likely to either drop out of school or miss 5 days of school per month.

While sanitation is a basic human right, yet many have their dignity taken from them in this area. They have no choice but to defecate in the open field and ditches, on railway tracks or in a plastic bag. So where does that plastic bag go – into an open area or water source. The cycle of poverty continues.

Diarrhoeal diseases are the second most common cause of death of young children in developing countries, killing more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined, and resulting in 1 death every 20 seconds.  The link between a lack of sanitation facilities and poverty is obvious. Here in Kenya there is only 29% of urban sanitation covered. That leaves a whole lot of people in the city without water and toilets.

A few months ago I was walking through the Kibera Slum where our sponsored children come from, taking a Brit on a good tour of the place. She wanted to see the worst, so one of our leaders, Kelvin, did that for two and a half hours. It was not pleasant. It’s hard to understand why anyone would choose to live in some of these places. Children playing by water mixed with raw sewerage, plastic bags of poo underneath your feet, smelly shacks with a long drop latrine.

That’s the thing though people don’t choose to live there. Their situation gives them no other option. When you are in abstract poverty, lucky enough to earn $2 a day, you have very few options. People often ask ‘Why don’t they go back to the countryside to their families?’ Most of the time there isn’t enough land to grow even a few veges on. They have no other option but to stay in the city in the hopes of getting a job or some casual work to feed their children with. Accommodation is at a premium in Nairobi for those who are in poverty. You have to take what you get even if it is next to a brothel or open sewer. If you can’t afford to pay $20cents to use a pit latrine you have no other option than to use a plastic bag and then throw it away.

So this week celebrate the toilet/s you have. Forget the issue of somebody having to clean it, the seat being left up or the accidents kids may have in using them. Be grateful and rejoice in what you do have. Then do something for someone who doesn’t.