World Toilet Day 2022 is 'Making the Invisible Visible'

World Toilet Day 2022 is 'Making the Invisible Visible'

Sanitation for all is a global development priority. HEEALS encourage behavioural change and the implementation of policies to increase access to sanitation among the poor, along with a call to end the practice of open-air defecation, which it deemed extremely harmful to public health. Hygiene promotion, the provision of basic sanitation services, and sewerage and wastewater treatment and reuse in the context of integrated water management is our prime prime priority.

World Toilet Day is 'Making the Invisible Visible', which focuses on the impact of poor sanitation on groundwater, and how inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, polluting underground wate.

Groundwater and sanitation – making the invisible visible

World Toilet Day 2022 focuses on the impact of the sanitation crisis on groundwater.  


This observance, held annually since 2013, celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 3.6 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: sanitation and water for all by 2030.

The 2022 campaign ‘Making the invisible visible’ explores how inadequate sanitation systems spread human waste into rivers, lakes and soil, polluting underground water resources.

However, this problem seems to be invisible. Invisible because it happens underground. Invisible because it happens in the poorest and most marginalized communities.

Groundwater is the world’s most abundant source of freshwater. It supports drinking water supplies, sanitation systems, farming, industry and ecosystems. As climate change worsens and populations grow, groundwater is vital for human survival.

The central message of World Toilet Day 2022 is that safely managed sanitation protects groundwater from human waste pollution. Currently, the world is seriously off track to meet the promise of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.2: to ensure safe toilets for all by 2030.

The campaign urges governments to work on average four times faster to ensure SDG 6.2 is achieved on time. Policymakers are also called upon to fully recognize the connection between sanitation and groundwater in their plans to safeguard this vital water resource.

Key messages you should know on World Toilet Day 2022

• Safe sanitation protects groundwater. Toilets that are properly sited and connected to safely managed sanitation systems, collect, treat and dispose of human waste, and help prevent human waste from spreading into groundwater.

• Sanitation must withstand climate change. Toilets and sanitation systems must be built or adapted to cope with extreme weather events, so that services always function and groundwater is protected.

• Sanitation action is urgent. We are seriously off track to ensure safe toilets for all by 2030. With only eight years left, the world needs to work four times faster to meet our promise.

Did you know?

• 3.6 billion people live without access to a safe toilet. (WHO/UNICEF 2021)

• Groundwater accounts for approximately 99 per cent of all liquid freshwater on Earth. (UN-Water 2022)

• Groundwater provides half of all water withdrawn for domestic use, including the drinking water for the vast majority of the rural population. (UN-Water 2022)

• Globally, at least 2 billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces. (WHO 2019)

• Every day, over 800 children under age five years old die from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water, sanitation and poor hygiene. (UNICEF 2021)

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19th November-WORLD TOILET DAY 2020: SUSTAINABLE SANITATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

 

WORLD TOILET DAY 2020: SUSTAINABLE SANITATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

 

Climate change is getting worse. Flood, drought and rising sea levels are threatening sanitation systems – from toilets to septic tanks to treatment plants. Everyone must have sustainable sanitation that can withstand climate change and keep communities healthy and functioning. Sustainable sanitation systems also reuse waste to safely boost agriculture and reduce and capture emissions for greener energy. Everyone must have sustainable sanitation, alongside clean water and handwashing facilities, to help protect and maintain our health security and stop the spread of deadly infectious diseases such as COVID-19, cholera, and typhoid. World Toilet Day is a United Nations Observance that celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 4.2 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030. Toilets can help us to fight climate change too! Wastewater and sludge from toilets contain valuable water, nutrients, and energy. Sustainable sanitation systems make productive use of waste to safely boost agriculture and reduce and capture emissions for greener energy. But, what is exactly a sustainable sanitation system? Sustainable sanitation begins with a toilet that effectively captures human waste in a safe, accessible, and dignified setting. The waste then gets stored in a tank, which can be emptied later by a collection service, or transported away by pipe work. The next stage is treatment and safe disposal. Safe reuse of human waste helps save water, reduces and captures greenhouse gas emissions for energy production, and can provide agriculture with a reliable source of water and nutrients.

 

SUSTAINABLE SANITATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

 

What have toilets got to do with climate change?

The effects of climate change threaten sanitation systems – from toilets to septic tanks to treatment plants. For instance, floodwater can damage toilets and spread human waste into water supplies, food crops and people’s homes. These incidents, which are becoming more frequent as climate change worsens, cause public health emergencies and degrade the environment.

How do toilets protect our health?

4.2 billion people live without access to safely managed sanitation. Instead they often use unreliable, inadequate toilets or practise open defecation. Untreated human waste gets out into the environment and spreads deadly and chronic diseases. Sustainable sanitation systems, combined with the facilities and knowledge to practise good hygiene, are a strong defence against COVID-19 and future disease outbreaks.

How can toilets help fight climate change?

Globally, 80% of the wastewater generated by society flows back into the ecosystem without being treated or reused. Wastewater and sludge from toilets contain valuable water, nutrients and energy. Sustainable sanitation systems also make productive use of waste to safely boost agriculture and reduce and capture emissions for greener energy.

What does a sustainable sanitation system look like?

Sustainable sanitation begins with a toilet that effectively captures human waste in a safe, accessible and dignified setting.

The waste then gets stored in a tank, which can be emptied later by a collection service, or transported away by pipework.

The next stage is treatment and safe disposal. Safe reuse of human waste helps save water, reduces and captures greenhouse gas emissions for energy production, and can provide agriculture with a reliable source of water and nutrients.

 

Source: UN

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Sco-18 & 19 Sector -14, Huda Shopping Center, Gurgaon -122001                   

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Menstrual Hygiene On Wall

Here’re some photos from our recent “Menstrual Hygiene On Wall” project. The aim is to spread water, sanitation, hygiene ,Menstrual Hygiene & cleanliness rules among students in urban & rural areas and villages and communities in India, through painting bathroom walls in schools. We deeply believe that this is a great idea to remind them some good hygiene habits and we’re sure they’ll never forget it. These walls have some impact full messages about wash and healthcare and children really appreciate it!

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THE WASH ON WALL PROJECT

Here’re some photos from our recent “Wash On Wall” project. The aim is to spread water, sanitation, hygiene & cleanliness rules among students in urban & rural areas and villages and communities in India, through painting bathroom walls in schools. We deeply believe that this is a great idea to remind them some good hygiene habits and we’re sure they’ll never forget it. These walls have some impactful messages about wash and healthcare and children really appreciate it!

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Manual Scavenging: an ongoing problem in India

Manual scavenging refers to the practice of manually cleaning, carrying, disposing or handling in any

manner, human excreta from dry latrines and sewers. It is a caste-based occupation and the vast majority of workers involved are women. This practice was banned with the passing of the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act 1993 and with the Prohibition of Employment As Manual Scavengers & their Rehabilitation Act 2013, but it continues to find practitioners. The occupation persists mainly because of the continued presence of insanitary latrines.There are about 2.6 million insanitary latrines (dry toilets) that require cleaning by hand.This dehumanizing practice is prevalent across many indian states, and it is done by people who fall lowest in the caste hierarchy. Not only is this practice humiliating but also a major cause of

discrimination.

Manual scavenging exists in many forms:

- Dry latrines, the oldest and most common form. Workers gather the waste manually, then carry it out of the house in baskets and dispose it outside the village. 98% of these workers are women.

Community Dry latrines (big structure used collectively by people) and Individual Dry Latrines (present at individual houses) are estimated to be 2,600,000 all over the country. According to the House Listing and Housing Census 2011, states such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra,Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal account for more than 72% of the insanitary latrines in India.

- Railway track scavenging, the biggest violator of the law in India is the Indian Railways (the ministry continues to deny the practice of manual scavenging) where many train carriages have toilets dropping the excreta from trains on the tracks and who employ scavengers to clean the tracks manually. There are about 8,025 railway stations in the country which ferry about 23,000,000 passengers everyday and an estimated number of 36,176 railway cleaners.

- Cleaning of sewers and septic tanks, prevalent in urban areas. Workers gather the sewage with bare

hands, sometimes while neck deep in sewage. Many people die every year by inhaling poisonous gases.With an estimated number of 770,000 sewer cleaners the average of reported deaths is around 600 every year.Manual scavengers are at a double disadvantage. They are members of lower castes and as such, face enormous discrimination in society, and second, are disadvantaged because they are manual scavengers who clean human excreta. The challenge of rehabilitation is urgent, and requires a comprehensive approach that moves beyond expanding income generation or providing loans, to focus on various aspects crucial to secure the future of the next generation of liberated manual scavengers. Manual scavenging is not only a caste-based but also a gender-based occupation with 90% of them being women. 

Households with dry latrines prefer women to clean the excreta instead of men as they are located inside the house.According to a Human Rights Watch report, on an average, women get paid as little as between Rs 10 and Rs 50 every month per household. It is much less than men who earn up to Rs 300 a day for cleaning sewer lines.There have been various efforts by the government, civil society organizations, and the foreign donor community to end manual scavenging. However there are significant barriers to achieving lasting change.Overcoming them requires a serious commitment from the government to ensure adequate programs are in place and to hold officials at all levels accountable for implementing laws and policies aimed at ending manual scavenging.

Legislative attempts to end manual scavenging have been accompanied by administrative programs,

referred to as schemes, and policies directed at converting India’s sanitation system and at helping

communities engaged in manual scavenging seek alternate livelihoods. The responsibility for

implementing these schemes and policies rests with a number of different government departments,

which often do not coordinate their efforts. The Government of India has adopted a two-pronged

strategy of eliminating insanitary latrines through demolition and conversion into sanitary latrines, and developing a comprehensive rehabilitation package for manual scavengers through a survey. 

However,while manual scavenging for many may have ended as a form of employment, the stigma and discrimination associated with it lingers on, making it difficult for former or liberated manual scavengers to secure alternate livelihoods and raising the fear that people could once again return to manual scavenging in the absence of other opportunities to support their families.

In contrast to government failure, the success of civil society organizations in empowering individuals to leave manual scavenging confirms that, with directed effort, it is possible to end the practice. Without effective government programs, civil society and community based organizations are working to generate livelihoods for individuals who leave manual scavenging. For instance, they have piloted gender and market sensitive vocational training. According to Bezwada Wilson, founder of Safai Karmachari Andolan (a movement for elimination of manual scavenging), the Indian government has responded positively to these initiatives by engaging in serious dialogue with civil society organizations. These efforts offer strategies and good practices to translate India’s legislative commitments into effective action at the local level.Various United Nations agencies and international human rights bodies have also addressed manual scavenging: 

UNICEF has approached manual scavenging as a water and sanitation issue; the World

Health Organization (WHO) has taken up manual scavenging as a health issue; UNDP has a special task force on the issue of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes; UN Women addresses manual scavenging based upon that fact that 95 percent of manual scavengers who clean dry toilets and open defecation are women; and the ILO focuses on ending manual scavenging by supporting implementation of relevant government policies in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. On January 31, 2013, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Navi Pillay, appealed to the Indian government to take action to end manual scavenging.

Government, civil society organizations, and the foreign donors intervention is needed to end caste based labor designations that bind women and men to manual scavenging. To overcome the entrenched obstacles discussed above, individuals need immediate access to alternate livelihoods and housing, and an effective response when they face threats of violence.

HEEALS (Health, Education, Environment And Livelihood Society) is one of those organizations

directly involved in facing manual scavenging problem. It is working on Water Sanitation and Toilet

Building projects in seven states: Delhi (National Capital Region), Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal,

Uttranchal, Leh and Uttar Pradesh. HEEALS works in marginalized communities, slum schools, schools in unauthorised colonies, orphanages and refugee camps. Through spreading education on Water,Sanitation and Hygiene, organizing workshop against Manual Scavenging and building clean and safe toilets, HEEALS is working to increase the attendance rates of pupils in schools who leave their studies to work as manual scavengers, reduce the number of diseases and deaths and improve the health of people across Indian society.

- Manuel
WASH Intern


References:
Human Rights Watch interview with Bezwada Wilson, national convener of Safai Karmachari Andolan,Delhi, December 13, 2013.
United Nations Development Programme and UN Solution Exchange (Gender Community of Practice),
“Report of National Round Table Discussion on Social Inclusion of Manual Scavengers,” December 21,2012.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/waste/manual-scavenging-a-stinking-legacy-of-suffocation-andstigma-
61586
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_scavenging
http://www.hrw.org
http://in.one.un.org/page/breaking-free-rehabilitating-manual-scavengers/
https://www.safaikarmachariandolan.org
http://southasia.oneworld.net/features/manual-scavengers-indian-railways-in-denial#.XHjD7a1aa1t
http://www.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/pub-povertyreduction/Social-inclusion-of-Manual-
Scavengers.pdf

Reason of dropout of girls from school

 Around the world, girls are less likely to graduate from secondary school than boys. Millions of girls are missing their classes during their periods, which deprives them of getting a quality education. There are many reason for this, mostly due to lack of facilities,of information and of sanitary products.

Culturally, in India, menstruations are considered dirty and impure and during periods girls are discouraged to attend school and stay home. The unavailability of sanitary pads, inadeguate sanitation and absence of separate toilet for girls in schools, has a huge impact on girl school attendance and is a major reason of dropout of girls from school. The main challenges at schools are identified as lack of soap, clean toilets, clean water privacy and sanitary pads supply. Moreover, there’s no facility to dispose of the soiled sanitary towels and no private area for girls to change their underwear or sanitary napkins and manage their hygiene. Menstruation continues to be a subject of gender disparity in India, because of a lack of awareness makes for a major problem in India’s menstrual hygiene scenario.

In Delhi, 40% of girls in government schools stay home during periods, for reasons such as unavailability of private place to manage periods, lack of running water supply, absence of disposal system for pads/clothes and lack of bathroom for girls. Girls are forced to stay away from school because toilets are open and there’s no privacy and also girls are hesitant to seek permission to go home. The reasons for absenteeism are different, one of the most frequent one is the lack of running water supply. Out of six girls, one school had no separate toilets for girls. Many girls complained that the toilets did not have regular water supply, forcing them to stay at home during menstruation. Additionally, cramps and shame are an incentive to drop out from school.

For some parents, puberty also indicates a sign of maturity for girls: time for them to get married. Thus, improving sanitation facilities and hygiene services could have a great impact on improving girls’ attendance in school. There’s an urgent need to improve basic facilities to cut out absenteeism. The solution is Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM), that it is the access of adeguate information, preparation, and support to manage menstruation in a healthy, safe way.  It can further social and economic empowerment and growth. MHM need the involvement of teachers whom are fundamental to reach out girls with correct information and skills to manage their periods. Girls and teachers have to discuss on menstruation.

Keep girls in school is not only important for their own health and well-being but for the success of the entire community. When a girl finishes secondary school, she is less likely to experience child marriage, face domestic abuse and suffer from long-term complications. As a result, educated women are more likely to have fewer, healthier children, who are then more likely to get an education and pull themselves out of poverty. MHM can affect the community also through demanding need for privacy for managing their periods could persuade their parents to construct toilet at home, the break of taboos surrounding periods and to carry out message on hygiene practice into their households and community.

Some measures that can improve the situations can be are the development of water and sanitation facilities in school girls’ toilets including the incinerator for safe disposal of napkins have shown its impact on the school attendance. This can reduce the dropout rate of girls in school. In 2015 the government of India launched national guidelines on MHM to respond to nearly 113 million millions adolescent girls’ at risk of dropping out of school due to the start of menarche. One of the surveys that informed the National Guidelines found that in 14,724 government schools only 53% had a separate and usable girls’ toilet.

We, at HEEALS, believe that MHM is fundamental for girls’ education and improvement. That’s why we implemented MHM measures into our programs for girls our school, through our Menstrual Hygiene and Girl Education Project in which we give girls classes on the importance of menstrual hygiene practices, free booklets and sanitary pads in Northern regions of India.

-Bene 
MH Intern 

End open air defecation in India

End open air defecation in India According to UNICEF: “Open defecation refers to the practice whereby people go out in fields, bushes, forests, open bodies of water, or other open spaces rather than using the toilet to defecate”. Open defecation represents a serious threat to the health of people (especially children) in India, where the estimated percentage of population practicing open defecation is around 40% (WHO/ UNICEF 2017 data). Open defecation was found by the WHO in 2014 to be a leading cause of diarrheal death. It is also an important factor that causes various diseases such as diarrhea, intestinal worm infections, hepatitis, cholera, typhoid and others. It can lead to environment and water pollution when rain flushes feces that are dispersed in the environment into surface water or unprotected wells. There are strong gender impacts connected with this practice: the lack of safe, private toilets makes women and girls vulnerable to violence and is an impediment to girls' education. Women are at risk of sexual molestation and rape as they search for places for open defecation that are secluded and private, often during hours of darkness.

The international commitment to end open air defecation worldwide is underlined in the SDG 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development set by the United Nations. Goal 6 states: “Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all” and its target 6.2 asserts: “By 2030 achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations”. The data highlight how far we have come since 2000. Open defecation rates have fallen and billions have gained access to basic water and sanitation services. Despite these successes, progress has been uneven in both areas, with wide disparities among and within countries. Although the data show a great improvement, around 892 million people worldwide continue to lack even the most rudimentary sanitation and still practice open air defecation.

In October 2014, the Prime Minister of India launched an ambitious national sanitation program that aims to eliminate open defecation by 2019. The Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) has unprecedented political support and has mobilized nearly $25 billion from Government, the private sector and civil society. The program targets behaviour change and community approaches to sanitation are being adopted throughout the country. The SBM has developed a national database with detailed information on latrine coverage down to the household level and a multi-stage verification process. As of June 2017, according to the SBM, over 205,000 villages, 149 districts and five States had reported themselves to be open defecation free.

The Government estimated that since the start of the Mission, in October 2014, coverage of latrines in rural India has increased from 42% to 65%, and the number of rural Indians defecating in the open had come down from 550 to 330 million people by June 2017. The SBM program recognizes the need to go beyond reporting infrastructure coverage, and is conducting population-based surveys to determine household use of sanitation facilities, which is the internationally agreed-upon indicator used by JMP (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene) to compare progress across countries. Within the governmental program a joint initiative organized by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation and UNICEF aims to increase the capacity of local and national actors working in WASH in schools. The world has made steady progress: the proportion of the global population practising open defecation decreased from 20% to 12% between 2000 and 2015. But much remains to be done, especially in rural areas, where open defecation has been declining at a rate of just 0.7 percentage points per year. This rate would need to more than double in order to eliminate open defecation in rural areas by 2030.

HEEALS (Health, Education, Environment And Livelihood Society) is one of those organizations directly involved in facing and solving open air defecation problem. It is working on Water Sanitation, Menstrual Hygiene and Toilet Building projects in seven states: Delhi (National Capital Region), Haryana, Rajasthan, Himachal, Uttranchal, Leh and Uttar Pradesh. HEEALS works in slum schools, schools in unauthorised colonies, orphanages and refugee camps. Through spreading education on Sanitation, Menstrual Hygiene and building clean safe, toilets HEEALS is working to increase the attendance rates of pupils in schools, reduce the number of diseases and deaths and improve the health of people across Indian society.


Manuel Mezzadra WASH intern





References: Diarrhoeal diseases, WHO, 10th march 2014 Fear and anger: Perceptions of risks related to sexual violence against women linked to water and sanitation in Delhi, India - Briefing Note. SHARE (Sanitation and Hygiene Applied Research for Equity) and WaterAid, UK, Lennon, S. (2011). Progress on Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, 2017 updates and SDG baselines. WHO/ UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation Violence, Gender & WASH: A Practitioner’s Toolkit – Making water, sanitation and hygiene safer through improved programming and services, House, Sarah, Suzanne Ferron, Marni Sommer and Sue Cavill (2014). Webography: http://heeals.org https://heeals.blogspot.com http://unicef.in/whatwedo/11/eliminate-open-defecation https://washdata.org/reports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_defecation#Impacts -

ON THE WAY TO AN OPEN FIELD. The rape risk for women for open defecation.

On the night of 27th of May, in Katra Sahadatganj, two girls said to their parents they’d have left home for toilet. The girls were found hanged from a tree the following hours. From a first investigation, the girls have been raped, killed and then hanged to make it looks like a suicide. Unfortunately, as many cases like this, it turned in suicide leaving the culprits free. This is not an isolated case, especially in the villages, women who have to find an open field to defecate or only to cleanse themselves are many and they usually doing this under the cover of night, far from the village eyes. Many women say to prefer to wake up before down and think it is better doing with someone else like a female friend or relative, never alone. They know that men lurk, watch and worse. “Try to squat in a sari, while holding a cup of water to cleanse themselves and keeping an eye out for rapists” wrote Rose George for HuffPost. According to a 2015 UNICEF/WHO report, this is what about 300 million women and girls in India have to face every day because they have no access to toilets. A WaterAid, DFID-funded Sanitation and HARE study, explains that in the slums people have to share public toilets and girls under the age of 10 reported to face a higher risk to be raped on the way to reach the public toilets. In many interviews conducted by researchers, women from villages and slums narrate the high frequency of cases of assaults. In any case, women always faced lewd remarks, physical gestures and rape when they hide in the bush. Particularly, a mother said she had to fight with a group of delinquents for protecting her daughters from getting raped. She knew that or they kill her to rape her daughters or they back off. The frequency of this assaults is chilling.

Nearly half the world’s population lacks access to improved sanitation conditions and half of them reside in India, where almost half a billion people defecate in the open. The lack of adequate sanitary facilities lead women to an increased exposure to the risk of gang rape and lynching. This is one of the reasons why open defecation have to be stopped, in addition to diseases caused by faecal contamination. Indeed, according to the recent UNICEF survey, 102 813 children in India died, in the 2016, due to diarrhoea. No country in the world has more open defecation than India, where one in two people defecate outside. Although open defecation has been reduced by 31 percent since 1990, about 300 million women and girls in India still have no other choice.

The improvement of toilet infrastructures in the villages is a target for the decrease of women sexual violence for open defecation, providing them some level of protection. According to Approva Jadhav, a US researcher, the non-partner violence is a type of sexual violence closely linked to open defecation places. The research results suggest that women who use open defecation have twice the odds of non-partner sexual violence (NPSV) than women who use household toilets. So, it is necessary to improve infrastructures to provide women with some level of protection against NPSV.

However, the building of infrastructures for sanitation purposes has to face an important challenge regarding the changing of people behaviour. According to a study, at least 50 per cent of structures built for sanitation purposes in India remains unused or is used for other purposes. According to some critics, this is due to the fact that imposing an infrastructure never used before without a direct request from the population, leads to a psychological rejection in front of the change in their habits. The change of behaviour can be done only by a demand driven by the population. For example, it is known a movement called "No loo, No I do", through which brides refuse to get married into families which live in homes without toilet. This can be useful for rousing the population mind.

India is running far behind to attain its sanitation goals and the situation is getting difficult with each passing year. The researchers strongly recommends infrastructure improvements that can provide women with some level of protection against sexual violence, along with behaviour changes to utilise these built toilet facilities.

Currently, many campaigns and NGO’s action, like HEEALS committed in the UN’s WASH project,  and the Indian government are underway to raise awareness of the use of toilets and to stop open defecation, involving the aim in the national conversation and following the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.2 for sanitation and hygiene. This is an important need that population can’t avoid anymore, because it regards public health and safety but also human dignity.

Elisa Stucchi-

WASH & MH Coordinator 

19th November 2018 World Toilet Day

We organized WASH Workshops In Schools & Distributed Soap Bars and Hand Wash Posters

Theme : “When nature Calls”

We need a toilet. But billions of people don’t have one.This means human faeces, on a massive scale, is not being captured or treated – contaminating the water and soil that sustain human life. We are turning our environment into an open sewer.We must build toilets and sanitation systems that work in harmony with ecosystems.World Toilet Day is about nature-based solutions to our sanitation needs. When nature calls we have to listen and act.

World Toilet Day, celebrated on 19th November, is about taking action to ensure that everyone has a safe toilet by 2030. This is part of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)6 : Sanitation & Water

62% People around the world don’t have access to safe sanitation

892 Million people practice open defecation.

4.5 Billion people live without safe Toilet

1.8 Billion people use a drinking water source that could be contaminated with faeces

Come Join Us Today ! In Our WASH Project .

Email : communications@heeals.org 

Toilet For Healthier, Dignified And Free Life

The possibility of access to safe, accessible and clean sanitary facilities reperesent an added value to the dignity of man and, in this particular context, of women.

In India, one of the greatest challenges is to provide women the opportunity to use safe and functional toilets to manage their personal hygiene. Many people in India are forced to defecate outdoors which not only corresponds to a lack of privacy but also to a mismanagement of hygiene because there isn’t clean water available to wash your hands and clean the body after defecation.

Although the Indian state is engaging through the Swachh Bharat mission undertaken on 2^nd of October, 2014 to ensure that the entire Indian population has the benefit of being able to use safe toilets,still today, access to clean water and sanitation is a great problem.In India, about 522 million people still defecate in the open, increasing the risk of spreading diseases like diarrhoea and other types of viruses, not being able to wash their hands and walk for the most part barefoot.According to Indian government data mission the percentage of children who do not have access to the toilet corresponds to 50.2% of males 44.6% of females compared to those who instead use accessible baths that account for 26% of males and 24% of females.Although the state is committed to providing more infrastructure, the problem affects more deepen in the socio-cultural and educational aspect. More specifically, this factor affects the dignity of women and respect for gender equality.

Women who live in rural areas and in suburban villages that do not have toilets, often reduce themselves keeping their physiological needs until the night, and look for a land abandoned, miles away from home in the complete darkness to be able to relieve themselves. This, however, exposes them to a high risk not only to contract parasitic diseases but also to the nights dangers, as ill-intentioned that would sexually abuse them or would like to rob them.According to research, 70% of abused women suffered this type of violence while looking for a place to defecate far from their home.

Keeping the physiological needs, brings serious consequences to metabolism, requiring your body an unnatural effort that causes infections both in the urinary tract and in the intestine due to the bacteria not expelled for too long by our body. According to the Indian Medical Association, retaining physiological needs for a long time, and not expelling them when the body requires, itcan also cause the intestine to collapse as well as the lack of assimilation of nutrients. Indeed, some data reported by the Indian government in 2013 show that 33.5% of women in the state of Andhra Pradesh weigh below the threshold established by the World Health Organization (WHO), also declaring that the% 63 of women suffer from anaemia such as % 56.4 of pregnant women, while men reach 20%.The Indian Medical Association also added that resisting to defecate necessity provoke and accumulation of gases in the intestine that damage the inner bacterial flora which becomes weak and don’t protect the intestine from intestinal virus and bacterial infections easily verifiable in case of bad quality of the water. Data show that, 1.7 million cases of diarrhoeal diseases were registered in Andhra Pradesh in 2013, more than half of them in women.

Hygiene Education and the good practices.

The absence of a toilets or a latrine where to defecate, also means not having available clean water to be able to wash hands after defecating. This means that the faeces bacteria are transferred to the hands and contaminate everything that the hands touch, like the food that women cook. Being able to manage one's own hygiene is fundamental in order to avoid many infectious diseases. However, it is necessary to explain the value of this practice, because unfortunately it is not common, especially for those used to defecate in the open. The importance of disease prevention is often not understood because it changes the practices of common use which contrast the willingness to use latrines because they are considered dirty. It is important to act through education and teaching also at school level of which are the unfortunate causes caused by a lack of personal hygiene and defecation outdoors. In this respect, the intervention of many NGOs, such as HEEAL, is vital for the purpose of learning and achieving hygiene practices. In fact, for HEEALS the objectives are schools, where children are the right age to fully understand and not have already rooted improper practices, difficult to change. Through interactive lessons, Heeals promotes and supports personal hygiene education and adequate water use, in order to guarantee children, and adults who learn from children, a healthier life by avoiding many diseases.

-Elisa Stucchi.