Adequate Sanitation – Context of Poverty

Adequate sanitation is a vital link in the “safe water chain” that stretches from an improved water source to a child’s mouth to eventual disposal. Safe water access can be practically made meaningless in preventing disease if children do not have use of appropriate sanitation facilities nor have knowledge of good hygiene practices. Children living in poverty are likely to have never seen a toilet, let alone been taught proper hygiene. The result is recurring bouts with preventable diseases like diarrhea, cholera and typhoid, which rob the child of health, causes the family unaffordable expenses, and can lead to death.

When children don’t have proper sanitation facilities, they do without:

• When sanitation facilities are too few or non-existent, children defecate in the open, exposing themselves and others to disease.
• Older children, especially girls in puberty, are too embarrassed to relieve themselves in the open or to share facilities with the opposite sex. Instead, they drop out of development activities at their Compassion center, impeding their progress and limiting their opportunities to climb out of poverty.
• Without sinks and soap to wash hands after using the restroom or before handling food, children easily catch and spread diseases.
• Frequent illnesses result in poor attendance at school and Compassion activities, and can lead to stunted growth and slower intellectual development.
• When children are sick, parents are forced to pay for doctor visits and medicine they can ill afford.
• Parents also can miss work and lose valuable income needed to feed and take care of sick children.
• Children who have not been taught proper hygiene will find unsanitary ways to wipe and dispose of waste.