“The new RWSSI grant is expected to play a catalytic role in improving community response to outbreaks. It will focus on capacity-building in order to trigger behavioural change and community take-up of the concept”, it said.
Sierra Leone is one of ten countries with the least number of safe and private toilets per capita in urban areas in Africa, according to a 2016 survey.
Meanwhile, the Evangelical Fellowship of Sierra Leone has told toilettwinning.org that they had been working in communities in the southern district of Pujehun to build loos and reduce the risk of diarrhoea.
This year’s theme focuses on how sanitation, or the lack of it, can impact on livelihoods. After it first declared the day in 2013 the United Nations this year said “toilets play a crucial role in creating a strong economy, as well as improving health and protecting people’s safety and dignity, particularly women’s and girls’.”
A lack of toilets at work and at home has severe impacts upon businesses through problems in the workforce: poor health, absenteeism, attrition, reduced concentration, exhaustion, and decreased productivity. Loss of productivity due to illnesses caused by lack of sanitation and poor hygiene practices is estimated to cost many countries up to 5% of GDP.
“Investing in good toilets in workplaces and schools so that women and girls have clean, separate facilities to maintain their dignity, and to manage menstruation or pregnancy safely, can boost what is often referred to as the ‘girl effect’: maximising the involvement of half the population in society”.
