It’s the holiday with the silly name…and an extremely serious message.

There are a lot of silly holidays out there—Plush Animal Lovers Day or International Bacon Day, for example. They mainly exist as fun, viral marketing. That’s not the case with World Toilet Day. November 19th was officially established as the day of action in 2013 by no less an authority than the United Nations General Assembly. It’s the centerpiece of a massive public awareness campaign to bring access to modern and sanitary toilets to the developing world. It’s a big problem: More than 2.4 billion people (more than a third of Earth’s population) do not have access to a clean toilet (or any toilet)
World Toilet Day’s “Sustainable Development Goals” aim to bring about universal toilet access by the year 2030.
But first, the taboos must be broken down. In almost every culture on the planet, it’s considered impolite, gross, or even offensive to discuss the bathroom in any way, particularly what every human body does while they’re in there. It’s a basic, normal part of life, and World Toilet Day wants to make toilets a basic, normal part of life, too. That silence, particularly as it relates to the massive need for toilets and sanitation, can be deadly—millions of children in the developing world who die each year die from preventable diseases they caught using primitive toilets or from unclean water.
So far, the drive to make clean toilets a fundamental human right is working. Just two years ago, World Toilet Day organizers cited 2.5 billion people who lacked access to toilets. Today, that number is 2.4 billion—meaning 100 million people now have access.
You can go here to donate to the cause. Or just spread the message: Millions of people need clean toilets…and toilets are normal!