Like Christmas, World Water Day (19th September) seems to come round more quickly every year. The number of people without access to a place to defecate,and urinate in privacy, safety, decency, with and the waste disposed of hygienically, at 3.4 billion, is slightly lower than the figure I quoted last year, 3.5 billion,. Not much as a ball-park figure, but it does mean a reduction in human anxiety for 500,000 individual people.
Think of that when you next retire to your bathroom or a lavatory cubical. That's a huge reduction in human anxiety.. Maybe you'll feel "moved" (pun intended) to send a donation to Wateraid , who work hard to help communities create suitable and sustainable facilities for their inhabitants. One such is the VIP toilet, which doesn’t mean for Very Important Persons, but Ventilated Improved Pit, the ventilation cutting down the smell and the flies and therefore the spread of disease.
Today is also International Men's Day, so it's worth remembering that the lack of access to lavatories is a bigger problem for women that it is for men, and particularly those who still have to resort to "Open Defecation" (squatting in the bush ) where they can be the prey to predators aiming to rape them as well as to embarrassment and indignity.
Maybe we males should double our donations in recognition and appreciation of our more "convenient" (pun intended) endowment.
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