‘Bog blog’ – one hundred year old toilet….
January 27th, 2010 by Jane EasonToday we at Practical Action are talking about quite an unusual anniversary, as today marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Thomas Crapper - the man who revolutionised the flushing lavatory.
Yes, we at Practical Action enjoy talking toilets. So the man who invented the ballcock and promoted sanitary plumbing is very exciting to us… and while we all take ‘the toilet’ for granted not everyone around the world is quite so fortunate.
A few years ago I was in Kenya and visited Kibera, Africa’s largest slum. With more than a quarter of a million people living there, it was not unusual to find more than 200 people sharing a pit latrine, which was then often emptied into a river where children played.
The only other alterntive was the beautifully named ‘flying toilet’. Basically this is where people ‘go’ in a bag or on a piece of paper and then throw it out of the home.
When I visted Kibera I was offered their ‘best toilet’ by community leaders, honestly, it made festival toilets seem – and smell – very sophisticated.
The reality though is diseases such as typhoid and cholera thrive in these conditions – children are especially vulnerable with a child dying every 15 seconds from such diseases.
Practical Action has however been working on sanitation for a number of years, and one project which has proved really successful is our shower and toilet block. Basically the waste goes into a thick, concrete chamber, producing methane, which is connected to a water heating system for the showers.
After seeing the ‘toilets’ people were previously using, this was just amazing to see. And one fantastic side effect is because the area is surrounded by a concrete path, the area has become a hive of social activity as women and mothers meet, while giving children somewhere to play.
Ant and Dec visited these toilets when they were in Kenya, you can really see the difference projects such as this make.
January 28th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Decent loos are vital. I recently spoke with Sister EK who last year ran a cholera camp in Harrare, Zimbabwe, the scale and impact of the disease she described was terrible. Flushing loos are great and can make a real difference, in the UK for example, however in situations of water scarcity they are not always the right option – decent, well managed and appropriate pit latrines can be a great solution. But as you said in your blog even these are not available to millions of people around the world.
Without decent loos women in particular struggle – I heard from a colleague in Bangladesh the story of a yound woman made really ill by the lack of a loo. She was too embarassed to go to the toilet during the day, as there was no toilet and ‘going’ meant finding a piece of waste ground with whatever cover you could ie if you were lucky a bush. She couldn’t cope with the indignity -like many teenagers here she was shy – and only went to the loo at night. To manage this she didn’t eat and drank very little. She became weak and ill.
When I spoke with my colleague in Bangladesh the girls family were trying to help but they were poor and a loo was beyond their means, they were talking with Practical Action and we were working in their community so I hope there was a happy ending – a loo in time for this gilrs heath and dignity.
Margaret
February 17th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
…its a sad reality