Yes, you've got that right - today is World Toilet Day!
Check out the day's events. Donate here.
No sophomoric humor from yours truly today. This is serious business.
So why do we need WTD? From the WTD site:
1) Because 2.5 billion people worldwide are without access to proper sanitation, which risks their health, strips their dignity, and kills 1.8 million people, mostly children, a year.
2) Because even the world's wealthiest people still have toilet problems - from unhygienic public toilets to sewage disposal that destroys our waterways.
Also (from Water Advocates):
In the developing world, one in four girls does not complete primary school - compared to one in seven boys - and the lack of sanitation is a key reason for this inequality.
Poor sanitation hurts economic development - Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam lose a total of US$9 billion per year because of poor sanitation. This is due to increased health costs, loss of tourism income, lost productivity, etc.
And just what is the big squat?
What is the relevance of squatting?
Squatting is actually a very healthy bathroom stance, but it's also a symbol of the problems in the developing world, where a lack of sanitation forces people to squat in fields, on train tracks, or in other open places. Open defecation is actually one of the worst problems facing the developing world:
- Open defecation spreads disease.
With open defecation, people accidentally create breeding grounds for disease. That's why 1.8 million people die from fecally-transmitted diseases every year. - Open defecation hurts women the most.
Open defecation threatens absolutely everyone, but women have further problems: in many developing countries, modesty forces women to poop in the fields before sunrise, or to hold it until after the sun sets. Imagine if you weren't allowed to relieve yourself during daylight hours, no matter how bad you wanted to go! What's more, many cases of rape occur in these dark and deserted areas.
You know what would be great? Have some athlete or Hollywood (or Bollywood!) star make this his or her cause. C'mon, Megan Fox - you could pull this off. Or George Clooney. Jennifer Aniston - might help her image. A-Rod? No - Derek Jeter. Tim Tebow. Denis Leary. Elizabeth Taylor. Too bad George Carlin's dead.
It would have to be someone who's self-confident.
Kara DiFrancesco nominates Hall-of-Famer George Brett.
Oh yeah - and here's the Poop Report. No s**t!
"We have been conditioned not to talk about it. We have had women's liberation, sex revolution, workers' revolution, we can talk about everything now -- the toilet is the last taboo which must be broken." -- Jack Sim, Singaporean businessman who founded the World Toilet Organization
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