405: FAECES ON BEACHES AND IN DITCHES II – Shit!? Who Would Have Thought That Shit Could Kill?

12 October, 2008

FAECES ON BEACHES AND DITCHES II – Shit!? Who Would Have Thought That Shit Could Kill?

Gleaned from: PLAN INTERNATIONAL HOMEPAGE January 2008

Poor sanitation kills 4 children every minute

7^th January 2008: PLAN INT. was boosting its efforts to stop open defecation in the communities it worked in throughout 2008 – the International Year of Sanitation.

By the time you finish reading this article, 4 children across the world will have died preventable deaths as a result of diarrhoea caused by poor sanitation and hygiene. Yet while tackling poverty, improving health and education services and fighting AIDS are often highlighted as keys to improving children’s lives, sanitation is often by-passed.

Despite its importance to the health of children and adults, sanitation was omitted from the original Millennium Development Goals. And its inclusion as an afterthought did little to improve matters.

Spreading diseases

More than 2.6 billion people – two-fifths of the world’s population – lack access to basic sanitation. They are forced to defecate in the open or to use medieval-style toilets that do little or nothing to prevent the spread of diseases – Daniel: 2.6 billion is only an estimate, so you know what you must do to the figure – x 1.5 = 3; or 3.5 billion at most.

Unless progress improved remarkably, the world would miss its target by a long shot of halving the number of people without adequate sanitation by 2015.

Children's health, and adults’ health, too

Too many communities view sanitation as unimportant, failing to realise its impact on the health of children and adults.

The fact that the United Nations declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation gave us a chance for change. Plan would play its part by stepping up its efforts to end open defecation in the communities it works in and provide schools with proper toilets and clean running water – Daniel: 2008 is almost over, so what have the UN, the WHO and PLAN, and all the other Con-Groups and Syndicates, actually done so far to keep their promises? Promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep!?

PLAN’s action

Water and sanitation is one of Plan’s key programme areas. Plan helps communities build 2,000 school latrines each year and in the last 4 years, has helped families and communities build a further 200,000 toilets benefiting several million people – Daniel: All of those are well and good, but the question still remains: Where does all that shit go, in the end? Into the soil to be spread by rainfalls and floods, to be absorbed by trees and plants; or to be washed away and carried by rainfalls into streams and rivers; and to finally end up in Human-Apes and animals as food and water!

In Asia and East and Southern Africa, Plan is now pioneering a radical new approach to sanitation which educates communities about the importance of sanitation and helps them to construct and maintain their own latrines. They also gain the confidence to enforce a total ban on open defecation – Daniel: Who is going to chase after every Tom, Dick, and Harry – or every Ranjit, Kodjo, and Ahmed; or every Mary, Ayesha, and what’s-her-name – and enforce the ban? And what if the persons assigned to enforce the ban also found themselves in the same situation and condition, and they had to go, too; and go quick? Would they all be carrying portable toilets or latrines; and where would they throw it away to make way for the next batch? Come on, Apes! Give me a fucking-break!

Success will save many of the 2,200,000 children who die every year – that is 4 every minute – because of poor sanitation.

International Year of Sanitation 2008

Tackling a Global Crisis: International Year of Sanitation 2008

To put the spotlight on sanitation, the UN General Assembly declared the year 2008 the International Year of Sanitation. The goal is to raise awareness and to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goal MDG target to reduce by half the proportion of the 2.6 billion people without access to basic sanitation by 2015.

Read: 28 / 29 / 289 and I hope you’ve read 404

Posted by akill 08:21 | General | Comment(0) | Permalink

International Year of Sanitation 2008

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