Speaker tour

Lajana Manandhar speaking during WaterAid's Speaker tour in February 2008.

Credit: WaterAid

The WaterAid Speaker Tour - February 2008

Between 18 and 26 February 2008, Lajana Manandhar, Director of Lumanti Support Group for Shelter in Nepal, toured the UK speaking in five cities - Leeds, Manchester, Bristol, London and Edinburgh. The talks inspired local people to sign up to our campaign for action. If you missed the speaker tour, you can still make your mark by visiting the End Water Poverty website to add your name to our call for the G8 to prioritise sanitation and water.

Lumanti is one of the partner organisations with which WaterAid works in Nepal. Many of those who live in Nepal's slum and squatter settlements lack safe sanitation and are forced to defecate in the open. For women, particularly during pregnancy, this can be extremely dangerous, as some of the open defecation areas are on sloping ground that gets slippery in the rainy season. Lajana told audiences how the lack of a toilet keeps people in a vicious cycle of poverty because of the health risks associated with poor sanitation, which impacts people's ability to work.

As well as the health implications of the lack of safe sanitation, Lajana addressed the issue of dignity. Many members of the poorest communities would like to have a toilet so that they can live a dignified life and can be considered equal to other members of the community.

She reminded audiences that the same crisis facing the developing world today applied to the UK only 150 years ago. The Thames was so polluted with untreated sewage that thousands of children were losing their lives to cholera and other diseases caused by lack of sanitation. Lajana highlighted the fact that when the UK government was forced to act - after the River Thames began to smell so badly that Parliament would not meet - there were massive health improvements and a huge reduction in poverty.