World Toilet Day

World Toilet Day? Yep, it’s a thing—and a pretty important one.

Every year on November 19, we ask you to take a moment to think about something most of us take for granted: toilets. But for billions of people, access to safe and clean sanitation is a luxury they don’t have.

World Toilet Day raises awareness of the global sanitation crisis and the health, safety and dignity issues that come with it. So, let’s talk toilets, because everyone deserves the right to one - and WaterAid is here to make sure it happens.

One child under five dies every two minutes

from diarrhoeal diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation and hygiene.

What is the Global Sanitation Crisis?

A decent toilet—it’s not just a luxury; it’s a human right. At home, school, work. Everyone should have a loo they can rely on.

But here’s the problem: more than 1.5 billion people worldwide (yep, that’s one in four) still don’t have a toilet.

We’re not just talking about a bit of discomfort . Without a toilet, many people are forced to do their business out in the open—no privacy, no dignity and a whole lot of germs.

And when there are no toilets, diseases go viral (literally).

Girls are the most disadvantaged without a toilet. No decent toilet at school? They often drop out when their periods start because there’s nowhere safe or private to manage it. This only widens the gap between boys and girls, holding them back from realising their full potential.

Governments have neglected sanitation for too long, leading to a major shortfall in funding, skills and resources. It’s time we flushed this problem away for good!

What is WaterAid doing about it?

WaterAid works with governments, development partners, utility companies, community-based organisations, businesses and local partners on the ground to help more people get access to toilets.

But we’re not just about quick fixes—we’re all about making sure these changes stick.

Working with those who need it most. People living in poverty or those who are often overlooked are our top priority.

Sanitation isn’t just about building toilets. We’re big on behavior change and work closely with communities to explore different sanitation options. It’s all about helping people pick what works best for them.

From start to finish, we’re all in. We tackle the whole sanitation process—making sure human waste is managed safely, whether that’s emptying, transporting, treating, or even reusing it. We’re covering all the bases, including how it’s stored and treated on-site, especially in rural areas.

Sanitation workers are unsung heroes. We’re shouting from the rooftops about the dignity, health, and safety of these vital workers. Without them, the whole system falls apart.

And through our advocacy and campaigns, we’re spreading the word that access to sanitation isn’t just nice to have—it’s crucial for achieving all sorts of other goals, like better health, cleaner environments, improved education, decent housing and fighting climate change.

We’re pushing local and national governments to step up and make sanitation a political priority, supporting them all the way.

Angela

Angela’s Story (PNG13)

Angela is in year eight at her school in Papua New Guinea, and during the dry season, things get tough—there’s no water for the taps or toilets. WaterAid Australia’s project is all about changing that. The goal is to create better water, sanitation and hygiene systems, which will help cut down on waterborne diseases and improve the health and lives of people like Angela.

Angela points out that when girls come to school while menstruating, they struggle without proper facilities and often just end up going home. It's a real problem that needs a real solution

"When girls are experiencing their menstruation, they just get paper and they just wrap their pads and they throw it into the pit toilet, or they ask the teacher for permission to leave, and they go back home.

Because there's no water, we find it difficult to stay in class because of the menstruation and it's uncomfortable for us. It's difficult for us to catch up because that lesson has been taught. The topics are done day by day, so when we miss school, we come the next day, and we have to try to collect our friends' books, to write copy notes from the previous day, over the days that we've missed.”

Octavia

PHOTOS (TIM9)

Meet Octavia. She’s 17 years old and in Year 10 at her school in Timor-Leste. Like any teenager, she has big dreams—her favourite subjects are Portuguese and Geography and she wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

But rewind to when she was 12. Octavia got her first period, and she was terrified.

“I felt scared because I didn’t know what it was!”

Like many girls in her community, she had no idea what was happening. The first person she told? Her mum.

Back then, the school’s toilets weren’t exactly period-friendly. They didn’t have bins for pads or even enough privacy, making it really uncomfortable for girls.

Octavia recalls feeling so uneasy that she’d sometimes go home just to change her pad. “Sometimes I felt scared, so I decided to go back home,” she says. This meant a 20-minute round trip, causing her to miss class every time her period arrived.

Thankfully, things have changed. WaterAid has installed a new, gender-inclusive toilet block at her school, and it’s making a world of difference.

“I’m really happy about the new toilets because they help us when we get our period. We can put our pads in the incinerator,”

The new toilets even have soap and sinks for handwashing, helping girls like her feel more comfortable staying at school during their periods.

It’s more than just a toilet—it’s a game-changer for Octavia and her classmates.

Sister Sandra

PHOTOS (PNG15)

Sister Sandra is a nurse at Dagua Health Centre in Papua New Guinea, where she and her team look after 22 villages, serving nearly 20,000 people. They deliver babies, care for new mothers and their newborns and handle whatever health issues come their way.

One of the big challenges? Malaria, pneumonia and a lot of diarrhoea. The main culprit behind those diarrhoea cases? A lack of proper toilets, which leads to open defecation and the spread of disease throughout the community. It's a serious issue, and it's one that needs to be fixed, fast.

“Our current situation here with water is not okay. All our wards need water to run inside the building. Our toilet needs water and there is no water so our toilets are dirty. It's no nice for the patient to wash because we don't have proper water. So sometimes there is no water so they just go [to the toilet] in the street and just leave it there.

[If] there is water, we're going to be happy. Patient going to be happy using the toilet rather than going out and fetching the water outside come inside, so the water is running and there is no need for them to come out during the night if they feel hot, they can stay inside the building and just go wash, come and sleep, use the loo.”