World Toilet Day 19 November 2021 - it's no joke

15 November, 2021

Did you know that some 4 billion people don't have access to toilets or clean sanitation?* That's pretty shocking in 2021, where technology is at our fingertips and we can exchange conversations with pretty much anyone, anywhere is the world in a matter of seconds. Yet billions of people continue to live in a way that is dangerous, dirty and utterly undignified.

The very essense of our public health depends on toilets and hygienic sanitation for everyone. Toilets are an important issue when it comes to supporting improvements in gender equality too, as well as education, economics and, of course, our environment. In short, there can be no sustainable future without toilets, so governments everywhere need to work super fast to ensure that the basic human right of access to toilets for everyone is achieved by 2030.

#WorldToiletDay aims to raise awareness of the global sanitation crisis. It focuses on building support for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6 by 2030  'to achieve universal access to safely managed toilets and clean drinking water.'

So what's being done about it?

Here you'll find information on what's being done to meet these global targets. You'll learn about the dangers faced by sanitation workers and watch a video (below) put together by the International Labour Organisation that shows how lives are often at risk from manholes and other dangers such as pollution, as workers dig in challenging environments that are unclean and contaminated to try to build sanitation worldwide.

*(WHO/UNICEF 2021)

This year's World Toilet Day theme

The 2021 World Toilet Day theme is about 'valuing toilets'.

To support you in the classroom, here's a downloadable World Toilet Day factsheet that explores:

• the current crisis
• its' consequences
• how we can achieve the UN's SDG 6
• real life case studies to evidence what's being done

Twinkl have a downloadable poster to help pupils understand the impact of unsafe sanitation for both people and communities, and you can learn more about SDG 6 'Clean Water and Sanitation', which covers not just toilet concerns, but access to good quality and safe drinking water for everyone too.

As you embed learning as part of 19 November's World Toilet Day 2021, you might like to consider the impact that poor sanitation has on agriculture and farming - and how addressing this will help futureproof our agricultural systems that support lives and livelihoods.

Water Aid has come fun classroom activities and ideas that will help pupils understand that World Toilet Day is about so much more than a simple flush.