#DontHoldItIn

Insights and experiments to help us disentangle the questions of gender, sanitation and social justice. Click MENU to browse Categories.

[dontholditin2015]

Lessons from three East African cities on why sanitation is such a challenge

Sanitation is a massive problem in East Africa. On the supply side there are a host of problems which are preventing people from accessing decent sanitation.

Important lessons from East Africa which speak to India and South Asia as well.

[dontholditin2015]

Robin Jeffrey, a visiting research professor at Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, is the author of several acclaimed works, including ‘India’s Newspaper Revolution’. He has also co-written ‘Cell Phone Nation’ with Assa Doron. The two are working together on a book about garbage and waste in India. In an email interview, Jeffrey tells Avijit Ghosh what stops India from becoming a swachh nation.

Prof. Jeffrey is a wonderful scholar but we do believe he is overstating the case for “ideas come first” and “demand comes first”. While demand is undeniably important, we must not dismiss the problems on the supply side.

See this paper from Hyderabad Urban Lab for more insights on this debate: http://bit.ly/1lLyLbC

[dontholditin2015]

The latest Tweets from Don't Hold It In! (@dontholditin15). A campaign to overcome the inhibitions against talking about toilets for women. Towards the ultimate aim of safe, affordable and clean public toilets for all!. Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

#DontHoldItIn is on Twitter! Follow us!

[dontholditin2015]

ఇది అత్యాశ కాదు కదా ! - కుప్పిలి పద్మ

Our first Telugu post! Please contribute stories in Telugu, Urdu, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali or Marathi. Share your story here: http://www.dontholdit.in/stories/add

[dontholditin2015]

First Period Memoir: Celebration Through The Ages - Menstrupedia Blog

Let me start by saying that I have enjoyed my period years, the pain and discomfort of them notwithstanding. I got my first periods at the tender age of ten and half years. Although the day I first got it is etched firmly on my mind, I cannot believe that time has flown by so...Read More

[dontholditin2015]

The open discussion on menstruation is #Happy To Bleed's biggest achievement

Started by a college student, the campaign has chipped away at the structures of patriarchy that remain in place in India.

#HappyToBleed

Share your stories at: http://www.dontholdit.in/stories/add #DontHoldItIn

[dontholditin2015]

Why Can't Women Pee in Public?

Sign our Petition asking for better, i.e. safer, more affordable and cleaner public toilets for women! Let us face it. Men can pee or defecate in the open. Increasingly, our cities are becoming intolerant of this and have begun to penalise men for such acts despite the fact that there are no accessible toilets even for men. But even so, we cannot ignore the fact that women cannot pee or defecate with even a comparable degree of impunity. The penalty for women peeing or defecating in public has always been there and it has always been much higher because it is imposed automatically by society. This difference is not physiological, it is sociological There are stricter controls and proscriptions on women's bodies when it comes to sanitation. Controls put into place through social norms and cultural mores. On top of, and in spite of, that fact, there are far fewer toilets for women.

[dontholditin2015]

A woman troubled by an urge to pee has just one third of the options to empty her bladder in the privacy of a public toilet than her male counterpart in Hyderabad. Reason? For every 100 public toilet

We would like to thank Nikhila Henry and The Hindu for featuring our campaign and petition. The article also raises other grave concerns over public toilets in Hyderabad, such as the complete absence of toilets for trans* persons!

Check out our Campaign! And do sign our Petition!

[sofsocialgood]

Lucy, a 12-year-old girl in Nairobi’s Mathare slum, stays home from her informal school when she gets her monthly period. She’s just one of thousands of girls from Nairobi’s sprawling slums that miss at least 36 days of school a year because of lack of access to affordable sanitary protection. Read more about these challenges – and what is necessary to overcome them – in this piece by Jane Otai, a senior program advisor for Jhpiego and New Voices Fellow at the The Aspen Institute, pictured here in Nairobi.

[oxfamgb]

Choosing between eating, drinking and using the bathroom

By Amy Christian

I have seen countless photos and read many stories about our projects in Nairobi, but nothing could have prepared me for the sights, smells and sounds of Mukuru.  As I looked around at the piles of rubbish and open sewage running through the streets, it really hit home what it actually means to be poor and living in a city like Nairobi. 

The sights and sounds of busy Nairobi. The roads congested every hour of the day. Rugged paths lining the motorways, filled with people rushing in every direction, perhaps on their way to work, the shops, or home. Trucks and cars alike churning out exhaust fumes that fill your lungs and make it hard to breathe normally.

On the outskirts of Nairobi, Mukuru informal settlement is nestled between big factory buildings. The roads to reach it are lined with market stalls selling everything from second hand trainers to bananas. Every few metres, music blasts from speakers, advertising the CD’s being sold from inside small shops made of corrugated iron sheets.  People mill between moving vehicles. The road is made of mud, full of holes and dips that cars and trucks struggle to get out of.

This was my first visit to an urban project. In the past three years I have visited many programmes in remote rural locations, but never an informal settlement like Mukuru. It made me realise what it really means to be poor and living in a city like Nairobi.

It’s hard to imagine what it would be like not to be able to afford to go to the toilet. To have to choose between drinking clean water, eating or using a bathroom. The only alternative to a toilet being to use a plastic bag and throw it outside.

I have never counted the number of times I use the toilet each day. Well not until today. I found myself totting it up and by lunch I had already reached four. I drink a lot. I need the loo a lot. But I can go as much as I need to and have never had to worry. There’s always a bathroom for me to use. Even on our journey here to Nairobi I noted all the toilets at my disposal along the way. One on the coach to Heathrow, at the airport, on the airplane, at the guesthouse, and so on. For the first time ever I am counting myself lucky for something I have always, up until now, taken for granted.

The poorest families living in Mukuru earn just 2,000 Kenyan shillings a month. That’s around $23 US dollars. We were told today that for an average family to eat properly, drink clean water, use the toilet twice a day and pay their rent, they need 14,000 Kenyan shillings a month.

So what do you give up? 

[nprglobalhealth]

Raya The Muppet Talks About Poop And Is Proud Of It

Why did the superhero go to the toilet?

“Because it was her duty!” Raya exclaims as she throws her head back laughing.

Six-year-old Raya is not shy at all — especially when it comes to talking about poop. 

That’s because Raya is the sanitation Muppet. She’s one of the newest additions to the Sesame Street family, introduced back in March as part of the Sesame Workshop’s “Cleaner, Healthier, Happier” campaign. She’s got aqua green skin, big pearl eyes and an orange button nose. And her mission is to teach kids how to pee and poop in a sanitary manner.

We caught up with Raya in New York last week when she appeared at the annual Global Citizen Fesitval.

Editor’s note: The interview has been edited so it isn’t too poopy.

Have you ever forgotten to wash your hands after using the toilet?

Never! I travel with my own soap, and I’ll sing a little song to myself as I’m washing my hands. I know here, a lot of people use the alphabet and just sing, A-B-C-D-E-F-G, and while you’re doing that, you have to make sure you wash between the fingers and the tops of your hands and the bottoms of your hands and everything in between. And you don’t finish washing until you get to Z.

Some people have trouble talking openly about poop. How did you get over your shyness?

Let’s face it, we all got to go, right? So why make a taboo about it? You should be able to just talk about it. I use a toilet and I’m proud of it! And just call it what it is. Where I come from, a lot of kids poop out in the open because they don’t have much of a choice. [Editor’s note: Despite our reporter’s grilling, Raya would not reveal her birthplace, although she did say she’s from somewhere “far away.”]

Read the rest of our interview and listen to a clip of Raya.

Photo: Raya might tickle Elmo with toilet paper if he doesn’t use it properly. (John Barrett/Courtesy of Sesame Workshop)

[dontholditin2015]

A Sesame Street character shows the way! “Let’s face it, we all got to go, right? So why make a taboo about it? You should be able to just talk about it. I use a toilet and I’m proud of it! And just call it what it is. Where I come from, a lot of kids poop out in the open because they don’t have much of a choice.“

[pubhealth]

In India, Dying To Go: Why Access To Toilets Is A Women’s Rights Issue

In May, two young women in rural India left their modest homes in the middle of the night to relieve themselves outside. Like millions in India, their homes had no bathrooms. The next morning, their bodies were found hanging from a mango tree. They had been attacked, gang-raped and strung up by their own scarves. Eighteen months after a gang-rape on a Delhi bus, this incident and others since have galvanized nationwide protests to end violence against women and highlighted caste-related discrimination. The tragic story also underscores the need to talk about another taboo topic: open defecation.

Access to clean, safe and private toilets is a women’s issue. An estimated 2.5 billion people globally lack access to proper sanitation, with the largest number living in India. Women are disproportionately affected by lack of adequate sanitation. Many poor women living in rural villages or urban slums wait until nightfall, reducing their food and drink intake so as to minimize the need for elimination. Girls often do not attend school if there are no private toilets, and this is especially true after the onset of menstruation. Approximately 2,200 children die every day as a result of diarrheal diseases linked to poor sanitation and hygiene, which impacts women as mothers and caregivers. Finally, waiting until nighttime to urinate or defecate is not only dehumanizing, it makes women vulnerable to sexual assault, as vividly illustrated by the appalling events in India.

(More from Cognoscenti: Thinking that Matters-90.9 WBUR)

[dontholditin2015]

Sign our petition demanding for Safe, Affordable and Clean Public Toilets for Women.

[pocketglobalhealth]

Women and Toilets. A Tale of Two Worlds.

The indignity of a missing or dysfunctional toilet has health and personal safety consequences for girls and women, especially during their periods.

[aljazeeraamerica-blog]

“Almost a billion people around the world do not have access to toilets, about 60 percent of them in India, and have to relieve themselves outdoors, according to the U.N.”

[dontholditin2015]

Mumbai’s Right to Pee campaigner Mumtaz Shaikh makes it to BBC’s inspirational women list

Mumtaz Shaikh, the Right to Pee activist from Mumbai, has made it to BBC’s list of 100 most aspirational women announced on Wednesday, November 18.Mumtaz's has fought a long fight to get free facilities for women through the Right to Pee network.

We should all be proud of Mumtaz Shaikh!

[dontholditin2015]

Why Using Patriarchal Messaging to Promote Toilets is a Bad Idea

The struggles for women's empowerment and improving sanitation are both harmed by using patriarchal messages to encourage construction of toilets.

Also read our blogpost on ‘Why Can’t Women Pee in Public?’ And this article by Shilpa Phadke we had shared earlier.

[dontholditin2015]

Are there Toilets Adequate for Women?

On ‪#‎WorldToiletDay‬, let's ask some difficult questions.

Are there really public toilets that would be adequate to meet women's needs? Click the link above for some reflections on this question.