News: November 19 - World Toilet Day

Did you know today was World Toilet Day?

60% of all rural diseases are caused by poor hygiene and sanitation condition. At any one time, half of the world's hospital beds are filled with people from water-borne diseases caused mostly by water polluted with untreated sewage. Proper sanitation is the best preventive medicine in the world.

Yet, 2.6 billion or 40% of mankind still do not have access to proper sanitation and toilets. And 2 million children die every year from diarrhea. Do we need more reasons to convince us that sanitation is so important?

And yet, sanitation is a problem that people are often shy to discuss. But a reluctance to talk about sanitation is part of the reason why an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide do not have access to sanitation. Under the motto "DON'T BLUSH, SPONSOR A FLUSH!", the World Toilet Day wants to break the taboo and improve sanitation globally. (Read more)



More on The Road about sanitation, water, poverty and environment.

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Rumble: Water for the Toposa in South Sudan

Meet the Toposa people. These traditional herdsmen live in a remote area on the shared borders of Uganda, Kenya and Sudan. Their tribe is called "Karamojong" in Uganda, "Turkana" in Kenya (an area stretching from the Rift Valley to Lokichoggio) and "Toposa" in Sudan (from Lokichoggio to Narus and Kapoeta, in the eastern Juba).

They live the life as it once was. Clothing is optional in their "country". If they have a cloth, serves the whole village, used when travelling outside the community.

Their life is centered in function of their cattle. Their cattle is their life. Traditional diet is cow blood mixed with a sort of cassava.

The family and tribe has a patriarchical system: Toposa men take decisions on behalf of the family or tribes in meetings where women and children are kept at a distance while the men discuss the people’s affairs. Tradition has it that important matters are decided in the early hours of the morning before sunrise.



Last year, the Toposa in South Sudan faced drought, cutting not only their water supplies, but also their food production. Only delivering food aid was not enough, so we started trucking in water with the food.
It was clear that a more permanent solution was to be found, to provide them with water, a rare item in the Toposaland.



This solution was to dig a bor hole, where they could pump water from an underground well. We trucked in the mechanical pump, and connected it to a small plastic storage tank. A low cost, low tech but also low maintenance solution.




Aid with a permanent impact...

This post was written as follow-up to a previous one: World Water Day: One billion people without clean water.

Pictures courtesy Constance Lewanika (WFP), with a special thanks to Cyprien Hiniolwa.

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News: "World Water Day": One billion people without clean water.

Today is World Water Day. This annual event highlights the need for clean water and proper sanitation. Let's have a closer look...

FACT: More than one billion people throughout the world have little choice but to drink from potentially harmful sources of water. 2.6 billion people have no access to proper sanitation. (International Red Cross)

FACT: The consumption of unsafe water results in diarrhoea, worm infestation and other water and sanitation-related diseases. (International Red Cross)

FACT: About 200 million tonnes of human waste are discharged untreated into watercourses every year -- exposing people to bacteria, viruses and parasites. (International Red Cross)

FACT: On a typical day in sub-Saharan Africa, half the hospital beds are occupied by people with faecal-borne diseases. (UN)

FACT: Poor sanitation, hygiene and unsafe water claims the lives of an estimated 1.5 million children under the age of five every year. (International Red Cross)

FACT: Every dollar spent on improving sanitation - ranging from digging latrines or building sewers - has $9 in benefits such as higher economic growth or lower hospital bills. (UN)

FACT: In 2002 the world set a Millenium Goal to be reached by 2015:"Halve the estimated 2.6 billion -or 40 percent of the world population- with no access to sanitation.". To reach this goal, the world would need to spending $10 billion a year. We are no-where near. (UN)

Read more in the Water for Life brochure

The top picture is an extract from the photo-story Water for the Toposa in South Sudan.


Top picture: A South Sudan water project, courtesy Constance Lewanika (WFP). Bottom picture courtesy UN (Water for Life)

Source: International Aid Workers Today

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