Q&A: Making Toilets Fashionable

Q&A: Making Toilets Fashionable | Source: IPS News, Dec 10, 2012 |
Fatima Asmal-Motala interviews JACK SIM, founder of the World Toilet Organisation

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 10 2012 (IPS) – When the founder of the World Toilet Organisation Jack Sim turned 40, he literally began counting how many more days he had to live and felt a sense of urgency to do meaningful things with the remainder of his life.

Founder of the World Toilet Organisation Jack Sim says that on the African continent there has been some progress in terms of the community-led total sanitation approach. Courtesy: Meropa Communications

“Can you imagine a person coming into this world and spending his life only helping himself? When this person dies, his life has had no meaning, so why did he bother coming here?” he asks.

A successful businessman, Sim turned his attention to an area which he felt was severely neglected.

US actress helps raise awareness for World Toilet Organization

Fresh from a successful run on the US TV show Dancing with the Stars, comedic actress and host Niecy Nash is partnering with Clorox Toilet Products to kick-start a donation drive for the World Toilet Organization by distributing free subway tickets to Flushing, NY commuters, helping bring attention to those with access to “flushing”.

On June 23, 3010, for every commuter ticket Nash and the street team hands out, Clorox will contribute a like for like subway fare donation to the WTO, estimating it will provide more than 10,000 free rides totaling a donation of $22,500.

Jack Sim, WTO

Americans outside of the NYC-area can get involved by visiting OdetoTheCommode.com on Facebook to flush the Clorox virtual toilet, which will raise another $1 per flush for the WTO.

All the money will go to helping the nearly 40 percent of the world without access to sanitation, and make toilets affordable in parts of the world where toilets can cost nearly seven months salary.

From 7-10am, the Clorox street team will be handing out free subway passes at Flushing Station. Then at 10.30am, Niecy Nash and WTO Founder Jack Sim will hand out tickets in Grand Central Station’s Vanderbilt Hall.

There will also a Live Video Chat with Niecy Nash from 12:30 p.m. – 12:45 p.m. Eastern Time on June 24, 2010 at http://www.odetothecommode.com/

The World Toilet Organization (WTO) is a global non- profit organization committed to improving toilet and sanitation conditions worldwide. Founded in 2001, it now has 235 member organizations in 58 countries.

Source: Looking to the Stars, 21 Jun 2010

The ‘big squat’ to take a stand on sanitation – Jack Sim in Chennai

Jack Sim, founder, World Toilet Organization (the other WTO, as he puts it) was in Chennai [India] for an awareness drive ahead of World Toilet Day on November 19. “WTO is an advocacy group. We don’t actually build toilets; we partner with organisations across the world and share knowledge and experience,” says Sim.

He says many people have TVs and mobile phones but no toilets. “It’s about prioritising sanitation; 40% of the world has no access to proper toilets. Sanitation is about making people aware of the relationship between hygiene and health,” he says.

WTO which has over 200 partners worldwide, 42 of which are in India is one of the few organisations that focusses only on sanitation and toilets instead of water. “Everyone clubs water and sanitation, and 95% of the funds go towards water projects. But good sanitation is the first step towards clean water,” he says.

Sim started “the other WTO” in 2001 to disseminate serious facts with a sense of humour. The logo is a toilet seat shaped like a heart. “I thought the best way to break the toilet taboo was to use lots of puns.” But the name, which everyone thinks is “really bad at first” sticks in people’s minds. “That’s because every mother has told her child not to talk about the toilet. It’s not polite’. And here we are talking about the loo quite freely,” says Sim, who is often called Toilet Man.

And it’s not just about getting toilets installed. “You have to keep them clean too. So Sim has started the World Toilet College in Singapore that provides training in toilet maintenance and design. “I’m hoping we can open one in India too to train toilet cleaners like technicians.”

He believes people need to be given incentives to keep toilets clean. “For instance, for a city or a mall, tell them how many tourists or customers they’re losing because they have bad toilets. In a rural area or slum, get the community involved by making them paint the toilet, bright and colourful, so that they feel proud of it and keep it clean,” he says. “You need to create an emotional connect with the toilet. If you keep scolding people, it’s not going to work.”

This year, for World Toilet Day, WTO is planning a Big Squat. “We’re getting people all over the world to squat together in public places and take a picture. It’s a fun way to get the message across and make people laugh,” he says. World Toilet Day, according to him, provides the legitimacy for people to talk about toilets openly. “Toilets are like sex, everyone wants to discuss it, but is waiting for someone else to break the taboo.”

Source: Shalini Umachandran, Times of India, 11 Nov 2009

Interview of Jack Sim, World Toilet Organization

In Conversation with Jack Sim, World Toilet Organization, June 30, 2009 by Bernard Leong

In the book “The Power of Unreasonable People“, a definitive guide (by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan) on the social entrepreneurship movement has mentioned a Singaporean social entrepreneur by the name of Jack Sim, who started the World Toilet Organization (WTO) and how his work provided a scaling solution for governments to set standards on sanitation.

Earning two prestigous global social entrepreneurship accolades: Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur and Ashoka Global Fellow, Jack has started a global clean toilet movement that help governments to shape sanitation policies. One success story is that the World Toilet Organization assisted the Chinese government in adopting the standards for lavatories before the Beijing Olympics last year. We have managed to get Jack to come on board for an interview, to tell us about the story behind World Toilet Organization and his views on the trends of social entrepreneurship in Singapore.

BL: Hi Jack, thank you for agreeing to an interview on SGE. First of all, tell us about your background and what are you working on before embarking on the World Toilet Organization (WTO)?
Jack Sim: I was a businessman since age 25 and at 40, I realized since our average life-span is 80, time is the currency of life and I need to use it meaningfully with a sense of urgency. Money becomes not an interesting pursuit anymore because I have to exchange time for money. It is better to exchange time for more meaningful impact for others.

BL: What inspired you to start the World Toilet Organization?
Jack Sim: In my search for meaning, I read one morning in the newspaper when PM Goh Chok Tong mentioned that we should measure our graciousness according to the cleanliness of our public toilets. I thought this is my calling and started Restroom Association of Singapore. After LianHe Zao Bao’s report, the public’s response was; “Somebody ought to have started this long ago.” They like it.

In 1999, I went to Tokyo for the Asia-Pacific Toilet Symposium and found 15 countries represented there. I wanted to bring that meeting to Singapore. Thailand and Vietnam also wanted to do the same. After my impromptu presentation about how the event will be organized and run like a swiss-watch, no traffic jams, global media coverage, professional management, great shopping, high impact, etc, both Vietnam and Thailand said: ” We are not presenting, we all going to Singapore.”

Next, I asked where is the world’s HQ for our movement. They said there was none. The Japanese host declined to lead because of language difficulty. So I offered to start World Toilet Organization in Singapore as a service platform and HQ. They agreed.

Later, the inaugural meeting became World Toilet Summit and our birthday 19 November became celebrated as World Toilet Day.

The first World Toilet Summit took the global media by storm and suddenly we are booked for 2002 in Seoul ( host Mayor of Suwon City/ Korea Clean Toilet Association), 2003 Taipei ( host Taipei Vice Mayor/ Taiwan Toilet Association), 2004 Beijing ( host Beijing Tourism Bureau). Later, 2005 Belfast Lord Mayor/ British Toilet Association, 2006 Moscow Mayor/ Russian Toilet Association, 2007 New Delhi President of India/ Sulabh International, 2008 Macao Asian Development Bank, and 2009 in Singapore this year.

It started as a hobby but got so addictive that I left my business operation to my managers and work full-time pro bono at WTO since 2005.

BL: What is the mission of the World Toilet Organization?
Jack Sim: We started as a clean toilet movement to improve design, cleaning and behavior. Later, we also extend to poverty, rural and slums toilets, sewerage, to meet the MDGs.

Through the massive media engagement globally, politicians and the global community found legitimacy to speak about toilets and we can attribute ourselves to the success in breaking the global taboo and bringing the issues to mainstream and center-stage attention.

Read More – SGentrepreneurs

Sanitation NOW 2008 magazine now available

Sanitation NOW 2008 is a “glossy” 20 page magazine on the global sanitation crisis, published by the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the EcoSanRes Programme. This is a special edition for 2008 UN International Year of Sanitation.

The magazine has features on school sanitation in Uganda and the Ukraine, Community-Led Total Sanitation, World Toilet Organization founder Jack Sim, and South Africa’s “Mr Clean Toilet Man”, Trevor Mulaudzi.

Download the magazine here