One seemingly trivial information that captured my attention while surfing online over the weekend is the fact that an average person spends an equivalent of 813 days in the toilet in his or her lifetime.
That’s about more than two years in all.
Other attention-getting facts and figures I came across:
• 3.4 billion people, or a little over four out of 10, are living without safely-managed sanitation access.
• About 309,000 children under 5 years old – or between 800 and 1,000 – die daily from diarrheal diseases due to poor sanitation and hygiene or unsafe drinking water. Sadly, these deaths are preventable.
• More than 350 million people (that’s about three times the population of the Philippines) are still practicing open defecation, thereby increasing the risk of diseases.
• Despite the rate of global progress, 3 billion people would be left behind by this widespread growth for they will remain living without access to safe toilets in 2030.
These facts are being highlighted by the World Health Organization and World Toilet Organization as the global community celebrates World Toilet Day on Nov. 19.
The WTD event was officially observed for the first time by the United Nations in 2012 although it was first marked in 2001. It aims to inspire action to tackle the global sanitation crisis.
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There’s something more interesting. As a step to address this gnawing health problem, the World Toilet Organization established 20 years ago the World Toilet College – yes, an educational institution – in Singapore. WTO said in its website that the college is a social enterprise committed “to address the gap in education and training focused on sanitation topics.”
The college develops curricula, courses, workshops and packages best practices and standards in toilet design, maintenance and sanitation practices and technologies. “It aims to foster an enabling environment for, among others, government officials, non-profit professionals and end beneficiaries to expand their knowledge and ensure the effective building and utilization of toilets,” WTO said.
Consequently, the idea of toilet-focused learning institutions spread that similar toilet colleges were established in Rishikesh and Aurangabad in India.
WTO was started by Singaporean Jack Sim, a Singaporean philanthropist, who subsequently initiated the World Toilet Day observance.
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Highlighting the significance of the observance, the United Nations said: “In a changing world, one thing is constant: we’ll always need the toilet.”
Thus, there is an urgent need to invest in what it calls a ‘future-ready’ sanitation today.
UN said toilets must be, among others, accessible to all, resilient to floods, droughts and other climate shocks and able to minimize greenhouse gas emissions.
We need toilets for everyone, everywhere, UN said, as it reiterated: “No matter how the world alters, some things will never change – our need for toilets is one of them. Let’s make toilets fit for the future – now.”
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The next time you sit on your toilet bowl (when put together, yes, that’s about two years), perhaps you can have brief moments of profound reflection, of thanksgiving and gratitude – that you are blessed to be enjoying the comfort and access to meet a vital human need and, at the same time, be concerned that there are about 3.4 billion people who don’t have the same privilege of having proper health sanitation.
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Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. (3 John 1:2) | NWI
