World Toilet Day is celebrated every year on 19 November. It is a day that seeks to engage and educate people and their communities worldwide to encourage support for sanitation-related issues and to break the stigma around sanitation. The silence around the issue of toilets and sanitation has deadly consequences. It is a day to raise awareness about all people who do not have access to a toilet despite the human right to water and sanitation. It is a day to do something about it. Clean and safe toilets are prerequisites for health, dignity, privacy and education.
The aim of this day is to draw global attention to the sanitation crisis. In 2013, the United Nations General Assembly officially designated November 19 as World Toilet Day. It is coordinated by UN-Water in collaboration with governments and partners.
World Toilet Day is about taking action to ensure that everyone has a safe toilet by 2030, and theme for World toilet day 2018 is about Toilets and nature. It signifies nature-based solutions to our sanitation needs. Today, 4.5 billion people live without safely managed sanitation and 892 million people still practise open defecation. Nature-based solutions (NBS) to the sanitation and water crisis can strengthen the ecosystems.
Toilets and sanitation systems should be built that work in harmony with the environment. When nature calls, we have to listen and act:
Importance of Sanitation
o Reducing diseases
o Improving nutritional status of children
o Enhancing safety, and well-being of children
o Increasing educational prospects, especially for women and girls
The Government of India is aiming to eliminate open defecation by 2019 through the construction of toilets across the nation. The Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India Mission) was launched on 2 October 2014.
See detail Swachh Bharat Mission
References-
www.worldtoiletday.info/wtd2018/theme/
