Have you heard?

It’s World Toilet Day

Friday 19^th November is World Toilet Day!

Oh yeah? Ever heard of International Talk Like a Pirate Day? It actually takes place each year on 19^th September.

You would be forgiven for thinking this is all a joke (that is, World Toilet Day) or perhaps another one of those wacky ideas marking some random day.

World Toilet Day is far from being a joke or a wacky day. In fact, it is a day set aside by the UN (United Nations) to raise awareness of the incredibly important issue of sanitation.

World Toilet Day was established by a UN resolution in 2013, In a bid to help break taboos around toilets and make sanitation for all a global development priority. While it’s been 9 years since first marking World Toilet Day, and despite the world working towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6: Water and Sanitation for all by 2030, there are still 3.6 billion people worldwide that lack access to a toilet. Life without a toilet is dangerous and undignified, and hugely disrupts efforts to ensure public health. With access to toilets come improvements in education, gender equality and the environment.

Toilets allow for better sanitation which is a human right recognised by the United Nations, and yet every day over 700 children under 5-years-old die from diarrhoea linked to poor sanitation and hygiene.

Around the world half of all schools do not have proper toilets or handwashing facilities, and unfortunately this has a disproportionate impact on girls who often will not turn up for school while menstruating due to lacking access to a clean and safe toilet.

Our work

At ACT we have long taken sanitation to be a serious and pressing issue, especially as it relates to keeping children, and especially girls, in school. This is demonstrated by our work in Malawi, one of the 8 African countries we operate in. In Malawi less than 10% of girls earn a high school diploma, while 20% of school girls cannot continue their education beyond primary school in part because of poor sanitation and lack of access to menstrual education or menstrual pads.

The Ulemu project (meaning dignity in the Chichewa language) aims to keep girls in school so that they can achieve their full potential. The project empowers girls by giving them knowledge about menstrual health hygiene and sanitation and providing them with re-useable sanitary pads which they can use to continue attending school. This project breaks down stigma surrounding girls’ menstrual cycles and helps to tackle issues surrounding inadequate toilets and poor sanitation to ensure the education of girls does not suffer.

Help us to support those otherwise forgotten

This World Toilet Day we wish to bring attention to the fact that far too many girls miss out on education just because of the lack of a clean and safe toilet. Our Ulemu Project is making a difference in the lives of many girls in Malawi, and we would like to extend it to Nigeria and the other countries where we work. To find out more and support our Ulemu Project, click here.