77% of Cambodians don’t have toilets. They're forced to relieve themselves in fields. Because of this, sanitation-related illnesses kill 12,000 Cambodians every year. But we cannot afford to buy every Cambodian a toilet.
Cambodians buy the toilets themselves.
CAMBODIANS WILL BUY THEMSELVES TOILETS IF:
1) Toilets are affordable
2) Toilets are made by local enterprises
3) Toilets come before TV’s
Today, the average yearly income is $244. The average cost of a simple latrine toilet is $300. Buying a toilet has always been too expensive.
Toilets have almost always been sold only in the main towns. With the high price of fuel, transporting them to villages has been too expensive.
Due to a lack of education about the life-saving benefits of sanitation, Cambodians usually value material goods more than toilets. You would too, in their situation. Why pay for an appliance that does what they're already doing for free?
Meet Ven Vandoun - a latrine beneficiary
Ven is 8 years old. Before having a latrine, he and his four sisters used to have to relieve themselves in the fields around his home. Read more.
WE ARE MAKING IT HAPPEN
Since 2009, the World Toilet Organization has been working with Lien Aid in the rural Cambodian province of Kampong Speu. Our achievements:
1) Addressing affordability: The cost of a toilet has dropped from $300 to $30 by taking a fresh look at the manufacturing of a toilet and making design improvements
2) Addressing availability: We train village-level enterprises to make cheap toilets of good quality. Now when a Cambodian villager wants to buy a toilet, he or she can.
3) Addressing demand: We work with villagers to show them the link between health and better access to sanitation through promotion activities, using posters and creating group discussions.
The result: Villagers demand toilets, villagers have a ready supply of toilets, and villagers can afford toilets. We have proven this approach works by selling 500 toilets in our pilot province -- which means 500 families now enjoy a life free from sanitation-related illnesses.
Meet Sok - a latrine sales agent
Thon Sok Leng is a very driven community leader, mother and businesswoman, who's taken on the challenge of bringing sustainable sanitation to Cambodia – one toilet at a time. Read more.
NOW WE NEED YOUR HELP TO TRANSFORM ALL OF CAMBODIA!
The need for better sanitation in Cambodia is massive. We are driving change in one province, but we need help to spread our efforts to the rest of Cambodia. The beauty of this innovative project is that basic market principles of supply and demand will do the rest. We aren’t asking you to buy one toilet for one family because our project is about stimulating a market for sanitation infrastructure without subsidies or external aid. It's about the empowerment of people through strengthening private businesses and entrepreneurship.
BE A PART OF THIS INNOVATIVE PROJECT. HERE'S HOW YOU CAN HELP US:
Money raised will go to train more enterprises around Cambodia, for the creation of marketing materials and for events.
SUCCESS STORIES
Meet Peun - a latrine purchaser
Peun Ol is a widower who is raising 7 children. After his wife died tragically in a fire, Ol faced great economic hardship as the sole breadwinner and caretaker raising young children. Recently, because of this project, Ol was able to upgrade his sanitation system to a twin-pit pour flush latrine with a tiled platform, for which he paid $52 USD. Read more.
MORE ABOUT OUR CAMBODIA PROJECT
Lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation are the leading causes of diarrheal disease in Cambodia, which accounts for 17% of all deaths of children under 5 years. The health impact due to poor sanitation and hygiene result in an estimated 12,000 deaths per year. Diarrhea also results in lost labor productivity for adults and missed school days for children. A World Bank study estimates that economic losses due to poor sanitation in Cambodia amount to a staggering US$448M annually, more than 7% of the GDP (Hutton et al. 2008). To reach the CMDG rural sanitation target of 30% coverage, latrines must be installed by an additional 160,000 households by 2015.
This is a joint initiative between WTO and Lien Aid, which aims to improve the health and quality of life of rural Cambodians by increasing access to water, sanitation and hygiene products and services through market-based approaches. The project aims to create household demand for WASH products and services and to help the private sector to meet this demand. The project provides support for design and marketing of appropriate low-cost sanitation products and services, training and assistance to private sector enterprises and linkages to local government facilitators in order to create a local sanitation industry.
The project is supported by the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Enterprise Development Program, a public-private partnership led by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with the support of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
