World Toilet Day! (And play true/false with Matt Damon!)

Happy World Toilet Day, everyone!

Here is the "about" from the World Toilet Day website:

This international day of action aims to break the taboo around toilets and draw attention to the global sanitation challenge.

Can you imagine not having a toilet? Can you imagine not having privacy when you need to relieve yourself? Although unthinkable for those living in wealthy parts of the world, this is a harsh reality for many - in fact, one in three people on this globe, does not have access to a toilet! Have you ever thought about the true meaning of dignity?

World Toilet Day was created to pose exactly these kind of questions and to raise global awareness of the daily struggle for proper sanitation that a staggering 2.5 billion people face. World Toilet Day brings together different groups, such as media, the private sector, development organisations and civil society in a global movement to advocate for safe toilets. Since its inception in 2001, World Toilet Day has become an important platform to demand action from governments and to reach out to wider audiences by showing that toilets can be fun and sexy as well as vital to life. For more information and tools to share: http://www.worldtoiletday.org/whatis.php

WTD's campaign focuses on the theme "Who gives a shit?" and features adorable kids like this one holding signs. (Check out more or post your own on their facebook page!)

Another promotional website is Toilet Day.org which encourages people to "Talk Sh*t for a Day!" You can join their feed on facebook or twitter, and they'll post toilet-related factoids to your feed all week!

Plus, watch and play this video with Matt Damon on sanitation facts. (Kudos to Matt Damon for being a spokesperson for sanitation!)

YEAH Matt Damon!

Facts from the campaigns:

*1 gram of shit can contain 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1 thousand parasites, and 100 worm eggs
*More people have a mobile phone than a toilet
*Shit diseases are responsible for more than 50% of the 9 million preventable child deaths each year
*More people die of diarrheal diseases than HIV, malaria, and TB combined
*The estimated gain in economic productivity if everyone had a toilet is $225 BILLION dollars.
*40% of the planet doesn't have a safe place to defecate.
*1.5 million children under 5 die every year from diarrhea.

So share with your friends, post on facebook, talk about it: sanitation is one of the world's greatest health problems, and we need to talk about it to get it done. Let's talk about it fearlessly, seriously, and let's aim for sustainable action.

We can do this.