2.8 billion
That’s the estimated number of people currently living without a toilet.
Can you imagine what your life would be like if you didn’t have somewhere to go? That’s the reality for nearly 1/3 of the world. They have to plan their days and their lives around when they can go.
Girls drop out of school because they lack a discrete space to manage their periods. Women are forced to travel far from home alone during the night to relieve themselves, putting themselves at risk of sexual assault. When faced with gastro-intestinal illness (which is frequent when you don't have a toilet), individuals struggle to maintain their dignity, needing to relieve themselves without proper cover.
Water supplies are routinely contaminated from individuals pooing or cleaning themselves near water sources. Couple that with inadequate handwashing practices and you have a lot of sick people. Current estimates put deaths from unsafe water and poor hygiene at 2 300 people each day, most of whom are under the age of five.
Did you know that 1/3 of the world's population has no where to go? Why not?
Let's break the poo taboo
How can you solve a problem if you can’t even talk about it?
When was the last time you talked about toilets, poo or periods? We want to end the taboos, euphemisms, stigma and silence that surround toilet access issues. In doing so, we work towards mainstreaming critical discussions about toilets, poop, menstruation, hygiene and clean water. By normalizing the conversation we hope that we'll eliminate barriers faced by decision makers when addressing toilet access and create a dialogue that puts toilets at the centre of social and economic development.
Small actions that lead to big change
We believe that sustainable change needs to be organic. That's why we focus our efforts on small, every day changes that anyone can make, whether you're a grade school student or a head of state. Using methods such as social media allows us to focus on individual actions and puts the power of change into everyone's hands.
Not only are we focused on changing what we say, we also want to change how we say it. We're working to being more value to toilets. For those of us with a toilet, we can't even imagine our lives without one, yet we have so little value for this life sustaining and transforming tool. We want people to take a second look at toilets and start to value them and the waste management systems they are tied to.