19 november: World Toilet Day

Every November 19, World Toilet Day is a United Nations Observance that celebrates toilets and raises awareness of the 4.2 billion people living without access to safely managed sanitation. It is about taking action to tackle the global sanitation crisis and achieve Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.

This year the theme highlights the importance of "Sustainable Sanitation and Climate Change".

Climate change is getting worse. Flood, drought and rising sea levels are threatening sanitation systems – from toilets to septic tanks to treatment plants. Floods can contaminate wells used for drinking water or can damage toilets and spread human waste to communities and food crops, causing chronic and deadly diseases.

All people should have sustainable sanitation, along with clean water and hand-washing facilities, to help protect and keep our health safe and stop the spread of deadly infectious diseases like COVID-19, cholera, and typhoid.

For some years now, the Probitas Foundation has been aligned with WHO guidelines by collaborating with projects that combat neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

Many of these diseases have close links with access to good quality water, sanitation systems and the availability of toilets. The use of latrines in good condition is a key factor in the reduction of diarrheal diseases caused by helminths or the decrease in cases of blindness caused by trachoma. But in addition, multiple NTDs such as schistosomiasis, cysticercosis, lymphatic filariasis or African trypanosomiasis have a direct or indirect relationship with the use and proper maintenance of basic sanitation systems, as well as with the spreading of the vectors that transmit these diseases. With no doubt, the battle to prevent NTDs goes largely to improving access to quality water and sanitation in communities, as well as increasing the use and proliferation of toilets or latrines.

Focusing on this preventive strategy, the Probitas Foundation has supported in recent years projects for the construction or rehabilitation of latrines and improvement of sanitation in different parts of the world.

Thus, we have collaborated with UNHCR in the Sudanese refugee camps in eastern Chad, or with OXFAM in favor of Syrian refugees in Lebanon. In the same way, we have favored access to quality sanitation for children in the schools of the Hushé Valley in Pakistan through the work of Baltistán Fundazioa, in San José de Bocay, Nicaragua, with the help of ONGAWA and in the Bankass district in Mali, with Ulls del Món. We have supported the work of Save the Children in Sri Lanka on a project that involved the construction of latrines as part of a general improvement of access to water and sanitation in rural communities and finally, we collaborated with Pozos sin Fronteras in the construction of latrines in areas rural areas of Burkina Faso. 

At the Probitas Foundation we have always believed in the value of sanitation for the good health of communities, and for this reason, within the framework of the NTDs in which we work, we will continue to strengthen the health of the populations through preventive actions to improve access to quality water and sanitation.