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World Toilet Day
End the stink! Take action here
Visit the End Water Poverty site to watch the new Great Stink animation and sign the call to action.

Credit: BIO Media
19 November is World Toilet Day – a day to celebrate the humble, yet vitally important, toilet and to raise awareness of the global sanitation crisis.

Imagine life without a toilet. No toilets in your home or at work, no public toilets, no toilets anywhere. Imagine the mess. Imagine the disease.

It's hard to imagine life without something we take for granted, but this is the daily reality for 2.6 billion people – 40% of the world's population.

Without toilets disease and death are rife. Illness prevents people from working and stops children going to school. Teenage girls are too embarrassed to go to school without latrines and teachers won't work in them.

WaterAid is working hard to change this, using simple and low cost solutions, and there are many easy and fun ways you can and get involved too...

Did you know?
  • 2.6 billion people do not have somewhere safe, private or hygienic to go to the toilet.
  • One gram of faeces can contain 10 million viruses, one million bacteria, 1000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs.
  • The simple act of washing hands with soap and water after going to the toilet can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by over 40%.
  • Safe disposal of children's faeces leads to a reduction of nearly 40% in childhood diarrhoea.


Take action now!

Here are some ideas for things you can do on World Toilet Day:

Donate now

Make a donation
To mark World Toilet Day, donate to WaterAid with your credit or debit card and help us reach even more people in urgent need of safe sanitation.

Toilet graphicToilet Tax - spend a penny
Charge a nominal fee to work colleagues when they use the bathroom.  This highlights how on any other day of the year, using the toilet is free - a luxury and right that many in the developing world simply do not have.

Tasteless tiesTasteless tie and tacky earrings competition
Don your most daring décor on Monday 19 November, all in the name of toilets! Fundraise in your workplace by holding a tasteless tie and tacky earrings competition, and flaunt your fashion faux-pas to raise vital funds, making toilets and latrines a reality for some of the world's poorest people.

Get writingGet writing
Send a letter to your local newspaper editor telling them about World Toilet Day and explain why you're concerned that 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation.
Download a sample World Toilet Day letter here (WordPad Document 28Kb)

Turdlywinks toiletturdlywinks
Play turdlywinks and get people talking about toilets. The game aims to highlight facts about the global sanitation crisis. It is available to play online here, or you can download it as a board game (Adobe Acrobat Document PDF 738Kb).


Tinkle TestTinkle time
Put up the Tinkle Test poster (Adobe Acrobat Document PDF 100Kb) wherever you can. The toilet door is always a good place. The poster reminds people of both the importance of having a safe, plentiful supply of drinking water and having a safe, clean place to go to the toilet. 

Play Poopla

Poopla
Play Poopla with friends or colleagues. By getting people to throw fake poos into a life-size model loo you remind them of how lucky they are to have a toilet! For more details on organising this, contact campaigns@wateraid.org.

Payroll givingMake a World Toilet day resolution:
Support WaterAid through payroll giving.

Your regular support through payroll giving can help us reach even more people and enable them to access life saving toilets.

These examples show the difference your donation could make each month:

  • £6 could pay for one iron sheet to cover a school toilet in the urban programme in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
  • £10 could pay for two bags of cement for two latrine cover slabs in Ethiopia
  • £15 could pay for the training of one sanitation mason in Nepal

With payroll giving your gift can go up to 40% further. Find out more here.

To find out more about campaigning for WaterAid, download the full World Toilet Day campaigners' toolkit (Adobe Acrobat Document PDF 384Kb)