Today's Life Lessons

Four ways her life will change

from water.org

Make each week of July meaningful. The water in your toilet is cleaner than nearly a billion people have to drink. More people have cell phones than a toilet. The solutions are simple. Join the fight?

• save the day
• fall in love
• be a hero!
• see the world

This girl washes up after using her new school latrine. Four ways a toilet can change a girl’s life?

1) She can stay in school.

Girls in the developing world often drop out of school once they reach puberty because there are not separate sanitation facilities for boys and girls. When menstruating, there is nowhere private to tend to their needs or deal with soiled clothes. The resulting embarrassment and anxiety causes girls to give up on school.

2) She’ll have better health.

Lack of toilets or other sanitation facilities forces girls to wait until nighttime to defecate (under the cover of darkness) or to wake up very early in the morning. This not only causes extreme discomfort, but can also cause urinary tract infections and other gastro-intestinal problems.

Fecal matter is the leading cause of illness in the world. Most of these illnesses, such as diarrhea, are easily preventable with access to sanitation (toilets, or other means of waste disposal). Because no sanitation facilities are available, open defecation is a common practice in rural areas in the developing world – despite the fact that people are ashamed of being forced to use this practice and often know that it is associated with disease. While many adult women suffer chronic diarrhea and survive, hundreds of thousands of girls less than five years old die each year because of it.

3) She won’t have to worry about her safety.

With the setting sun comes the long-awaited opportunity for girls to relieve themselves – but fear is a companion to their relief. When a girl’s only option is relieve herself under the cover of darkness, in a remote field or other removed location, she is more open to attack by wild animals and poisonous insects, and more vulnerable to rape and physical and sexual assault.

4) She’ll have the dignity she deserves.

Imagine living life without sanitation: you have no privacy, no sense of security, poor health, and limited options for staying in school.

Now, imagine this: because of a loan or grant, you have a toilet. You can stay in school. You experience privacy, safety, health, and dignity.

There are few needs more basic – or more important – than sanitation. Once women and girls have access to sanitation, they regain their dignity and the opportunity to thrive in all other areas of their life as well.