It takes a toilet to raise a child

By Lisa O'Shea; World Vision International

Lisa is the Child Health Now campaign manager globally, living and working out of Johannesburg, South Africa.

'It takes a whole village to raise a child'. This proverb appears in many African cultures - from the Yoruba tribe of Nigeria to the Sukuma of Tanzania, albeit in slightly different incarnations. However whatever the wording, the message is the same.  The whole community has a role in safeguarding the safe passage of a child from its birth to adolescence.

This week, communities around the world are publicly acknowledging that, uniting across borders so that their children survive to fulfil their potential. From Armenia to Zambia, communities are asking leaders to act urgently so that no child dies from preventable causes.

Diarrhoea is one of those causes. It’s an uncomfortable thing, diarrhoea, embarrassing to say out loud, hard to spell and tricky to discuss. But a far more uncomfortable truth is that every year, diarrhoea kills 700,000 children.

That is something that is impossible to stomach, especially when there are simple and cheap interventions which can prevent diarrhoea. Regular hand-washing with soap, access to clean drinking water and toilets seem like simple things but they can help save thousands of lives.

A new toilet in Cambodia is cause for celebration!

Unfortunately, for 2.5 billion  people worldwide, access to clean water or a toilet remain out of reach. As World Vision, we won't stand for that. That's why we chose to hold our Global Week of Action to coincide with World Toilet Day, to highlight the thousands of unnecessary child deaths because of poor sanitation.

We are proud to be working with our partners such as End Water Poverty [external link] and WaterAid [external link] to hold governments to account. Through the Keep Your Promises campaign [external link], which launches this World Toilet Day, we can make sure millions more survive their fifth birthday.

World Toilet Day is a time to remind leaders that it's time for action and it's time for toilets. Without safe sanitation and drinking water, 2,000 children will die each day from water-related diseases. In the communities and villages facing this tragedy, the desire for better sanitation is very clear. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a toilet and some soap to protect them from many of the world’s preventable illnesses.