[Child Survival] How toilets save lives

We forgive you if you don't know that 2008 is officially the International Year of Sanitation. The truth is, good sanitation is not something we have to spend a lot of time worrying about here in the U.S. But in the rest of the world? Believe it or not, 2.6 billion people " about 40 percent of the world's population " don't have access to improved sanitation. We forgive you if you don't know that 2008 is officially the International Year of Sanitation. The truth is, good sanitation is not something we have to spend a lot of time worrying about here in the U.S. But in the rest of the world? Believe it or not, 2.6 billion people " about 40 percent of the world's population " don't have access to improved sanitation.

UNICEF/ HQ06-1846/Josh Estey

Can you imagine what life would be like if your house and your school had no bathroom? If, a number of times a day, you had to go outside and try to find a little privacy behind a bush or next to a fence? But this isn't just about how awful it would be not to have a toilet in your house. Lack of sanitation is a major child survival issue. Going to the bathroom in the open means human waste gets into the water supply and that makes a lot of people -- especially children -- very sick. Every year, more than 1.5 million children under age five die from the diarrhea that results from inadequate sanitation, poor hygiene, and unsafe drinking water. UNICEF is working harder than ever lately to improve sanitation and hygiene practices around the world. We do everything from working with governments like Bangladesh on the big-scale issues (changing policy, implementing country-wide programs) to working in the tiniest villages in places like Nepal, supporting grassroots groups of villagers and schoolchildren that go door-to-door to talk to people about the importance of sanitation, and help them find the means to build latrines. To help draw attention to water and sanitation issues, UNICEF worked with two of Ghana's most popular musicians, Rocky Dawuni and Samini, to record a song about sanitation and drinking water called (appropriately) Clean Water.