By Shannon Smith | Program Advisor
SOIL celebrated two of our favorite holidays recently: World Toilet Day and World Soil Day. To us, toilets and soil go together like peas in a pod. Many of you know that SOIL uses the natural processes of ecological sanitation in order to transform toilet waste into nutrient rich compost, as shown in the EcoSan Cycle graphic.
Here in Haiti, we celebrated World Toilet Day as a platform to spread the word about Ecological Sanitation. We had a large crowd of over 300 people join us for an event that included DJs, government officials from the Ministry of Public Health, and a theater troupe known as Twoup Djabolo.
Afterwards, we visited a women’s group that invited us to celebrate the day with them. With around 80 participants, we reflected on the theme “Every house with a toilet!” and watched a short film about cholera. Me Daniel Jean-Jacques, an EkoLakay household toilet client, gave a testimony about the importance of toilets. She told the group, “in our neighborhood, there are a lot of problems with sanitation. People don’t have toilets and so they defecate wherever they can, such as in an abandoned house or a plastic bag that they throw out, or by the sea. I thank SOIL for helping this community with the EkoLakay service because it makes an impact on health. It’s important that we participate by telling our neighbors to sign up for an EkoLakay toilet.”
Although the subject matter was serious, we also enjoyed moments of lighthearted fun with the Twoup Djabolo. And of course, no SOIL event is complete without Algate, our Hygiene Promoter, singing her popular EkoLakay song.
While we were busy at these events in Haiti, you were celebrating World Toilet Day with us from abroad! We so appreciate the #Unselfies that you shared on social media in order to spread the world about World Toilet Day and SOIL. Our staff also contributed with the reasons that they are grateful for their EcoSan toilets.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this year’s World Toilet Day and World Soil Day very special for SOIL.
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