Water and Toilet: Myths and Perceptions
The very existence of us can be credited to the single entity we call ‘water’. It connects us all no matter where we live, what we do or what group we belong to. Water can’t be lived without.
Now, if water can’t be lived without, how toilets for many can be lived without is something of a puzzle for me. I grew up watching open defecation, community led open defecation (!, I also watched the beautiful impact of community led total sanitation, that story is for some other time) and branching myths and taboos related to pee and poop.
You read that right. For many saying the word out, is often a matter of shame. In a world where more people have phones than proper toilets, something like that is not unexpected. But when we need to go, we need to go. And once we are done, we often forget what happens to our shit.
It matters where we go. And definitely it matter where we get it from.
I come from a country that a year ago claimed to achieve 99% success in preventing open defecation. It’s often frustrating when indicators get caught up in jargon and definition. 99% is for me one such.
In 2014, I did my dissertation on public toilets. When I proposed my research topic, many of my faculties and classmates did not approve. Yet, toilets are one of the main reasons of school dropouts and why women and children are limited in movement in countries like Bangladesh. Last year, I was coordinating a project called ‘PedalPure’ and this fact came up again. The project showed me how having all the resources in the world may not be enough when the group you are working with require myths to bust and taboos to break. Perception matters as it working in all directions, incorporating taboos and myths and disbeliefs.
How much do we focus on changing perception? About energy, about solar, about water sources, about toilets? ‘Pooping under the open sky is better than being in a small space’, ‘Jaundice happens due to exposure to sun’, ‘safe water tastes worse’, ‘solar batteries will burst from the sun’s heat’ are some of the words I had to debunk while sensitizing.
It’s not that you can prove them wrong. Reasoning is not what they look for. It’s not like this group of people (billions in number, one in three do not have safe toilet) are different. I mean who does not want to live happy? Who does not want to have climate that’s favorable? Who does not want clean air to breathe in and clean water to drink? And who does not like a clean toilet to sit on? It’s the way we want it, creates a difference for everyone.
The human factor is the most crucial of all in attaining sustainability and sustainable development goals. Change in perception requires time, effort and attention. And it is not often quantifiable only can be witnessed and done qualitative work on. But the effect of such change is long lasting and work as incubator for solutions. As we walk into Unleash 2017, first of it’s kind event, we must ask how this human factor will react to the solutions we provide and promote.
