The Toilet Problem

Winding up my blog on the Olympics was suppose to be my topic this mid-week; however, the report on the toilet problem, which I read on Weekend Balita (Aug. 23-26 issue)caught my attention.

The Associated Foreign Press report on the toilet problem was from the World Water Week forum, which was participated by 2,500 sanitation experts, recently held in Stockholm, Sweden.

Checking the internet on the issue, I also found the following: 1) It was reported by World Health Organization that nearly two million people die every year from diseased related to bad sanitation and 2.6 billion people around the world do not have access to proper restroom. 2) The United Nation launched The International Year of Sanitation 2008, in November of last year, primarily to bring international attention to this problem. 3) In response, the World Toilet Association (hmmm... didn't know before that such association exists) has been working towards providing toilet facilities particularly in developing countries. (CNN.com)

Despite humanitarian endeavor to solve this problem, the recently held conference in Stockholm reported that there is still an estimated 1.2 billion people, primarily in Asia and Africa, still do not use toilets (even if it is available) to defecate. The paper further said that the best method to make this effort a success has been to shame people.

Even though shaming may be the best method to encourage the use of toilets in India or Bangladesh, this must be used with extra caution when applying it globally. The culture of some people groups around the world might not welcome such strategy, that toilet advocates might be endangered. I just wanted to voice my concern, because some selfless and determined outsiders, may they be change agents or technocrats, might apply this strategy without considering the culture of the target population. There were many introduced change that were considered beneficial to the target population, but did not succeed just because the change agents failed (or ignored)to study the web of culture and the environment.

(Several years ago, I was invited to visit the Masahua Indian Development Program in Mexico by its executive director, my co-fellow at Haggai Institute in Singapore. I was happy to see that almost all programs were beneficial to the community, until I heard about this one project. Glass Etching. What on earth happened here? Many Masahua Indians live in small houses made of mud bricks that I can barely see the point of giving them the skill in glass etching! Anyway glass etching was no "biggie" than the state-sponsored swine program in the past, which was a complete failure.)

I see the need to aggressively advocate the use of toilet. Nevertheless, before a change agent introduces it, he or she must consider the culture and the environment. So many economic resources, many of these were money loaned from World Bank, have been wasted already.

I never will forget my time with the Ata Manobo in southern Philippines. I was a young, very ambitious and mission-minded change agent then. I was successful in advocating almost all the planned changes, but was minimally successful in toilet advocacy. Don't get me wrong. I practiced very good toilet training (LOL). Seriously, I was very good, if not excellent, role model. Unlike the villagers, I shunned using the open field or the river to defecate. I have my outhouse.

Shaming an Ata Manobo as a strategy would never work, because to shame somebody, in their culture, is tantamount to killing somebody. One cannot even laugh, while looking at an Ata Manobo passerby, because it always is taken seriously as an action done to shame him/her. Shame oftentimes triggers raiding and murder. Hence, a change agent cannot apply a "shame strategy" with them.

I tried my best to incorporate health and sanitation in the literacy and health programs, however, to encourage them to use an outhouse was difficult to hurdle.

Pit latrine was accepted lightly, because digging a two-meter pit in the village will turn into a water well. The water in the pit latrine became a breeding ground of the malarious anopheles mosquitoes. Further, the villagers cannot stand getting wet by the splashing of water while using the pit latrine. Furthermore, they cannot stand the stink, which they believe made them sicker.

The best solution to counteract the village refusal to use toilets was to encourage digging a shallow hole every time they defecate in the field. This was acceptable.

I just hope toilet advocates would try to find specific strategy to combat intestinal diseases based on the culture and environment, rather than resorting outright to shaming the target population. In short, don't consider that what is good for the gander is also good for the goose. So, just be careful out there. Good luck.

(NOTE: You can read more of my change advocacy among the Ata Manobo in my book, KOILAWAN: Letters and Poems of a Jungle Dad-Mom, now available in many online book outlets in 21 countries.)