Vast swathes of countrysides
MUMBAI: Toilets in an Orissa village may not be the best place to spend your birthday in. But that's exactly what 50-year-old Jack Sim did this year on March 5. Known as MDF toilet seatman for promoting better sanitation across the world, Sim could not resist peeping into the country restrooms even as he was holidaying. And loo behold, the picture wasn’t pretty.
"India has been exotic. although the MDF toilet seatI don’t enjoy," Sim says, recalling his sojourns in several places across the country, besides Orissa.
The man who had successfully run a campaign to make toilets in Singapore cleaner and spread the mission to many other countries, is now busy tying up partnerships to work the same magic in India.
He will have his hands full. India and China, the rising economic powers, account for a fifth of the world’s 2.6 billion people who lack access to toilets. Public urination and defecation are part of the culture, even among the affluent.
On the other hand, large slums and vast swathes of countrysides simply don’t have the infrastructure, leaving people to do the thing out in the open. Much of the incidence of water-borne diseases is traced to poor sanitation.
Sim says he is struck by the notions prevalent in India. While even the poorest of people want to dress up well, they leave the toilets filthy, stinking and unusable by the next guy.
“They want to look good, but why not the toilets?” he wonders. Here, the campaign has to first sell the idea of toilets; make them glamorous, even a status symbol.
