WASH, Women and my why
How time flies when you’re having fun! It’s already been a month since I last sat down and wrote. Continuing on from my last blog where I reflected on finding the work you can’t not do and alluding to my ‘why’, it seems fitting that I’m writing again a week on from the WASH Futures Conference and International Women’s Day – two events that represent a lot of how my why has begun to manifest itself in my life.
As I mentioned in my last post I spent a good bit of time reflecting on my core values and my ‘why’ last year. The statement, that as Simon Sinek describes, is your origin story. A statement about who you aspire to be – who you are at your natural best. Why is this relevant to last week? Well besides it being a great tool to use when you need to reconnect to something when shit gets hard, your resilience is low, your running on little, to no, sleep and you’ve had way too much coffee… honestly, from first-hand experience having this on hand is like a life-raft in an ocean when you’re not feeling it. Besides this, it also happens that how and what my why looks like in my life has an awful lot to do with women and WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene).
My why statement itself is pretty simple – to support others so that they have the opportunity to reach their full potential. It’s founded in two very deep drivers I have for equality and justice. Across my life these have manifested from small things like me working my butt off as a kid to prove I was just as good as any guy playing soccer (having supportive parents and coaches who reminded me of this regularly helped), through to the bigger things of always trying to speak up on injustice, sticking up for younger kids and calling out bullies, to a list of jobs that centered on empowering youth, critically reflecting on the root causes of unequal access to water and mismanaged resources and now working in the water and WASH sectors as a communications professional. You might be thinking that it seems like a pretty vague statement and a lot of people would have the same, and you’d be right. Your why statement is at the heart of what you do, but how you decide to translate this in your life, what you decide to do to live by this, is where things get interesting. This is where you get creative – using the unique skills and experiences only you have to put this why into action is going to look very different for every person.
The thing that remains constant in my life is an inability to comprehend how injustice and inequality still persist. I get pretty angry if I dwell on it too long and I’m slowly getting better at harnessing this rage into useful words and actions as I get older (I acknowledge I have a long way to go). Over the last five years however, I’ve narrowed my why down to a ‘what’ in quite a specific area that I think is the absolute foundation of development, equality and justice – universal access to safe drinking water, improved sanitation and improved hygiene behaviours.
I can’t get past the fact that girls are still dropping out of school when they reach puberty, that women are still dying in childbirth, that children continue to die before they reach their fifth birthday, that women and girls face violence, rape and death and that children, particularly girls, are not even given a chance to reach their full potential due to something we take for granted every day – clean, safe and accessible drinking water, and private, functional and well-managed toilets, and access to soap and hygiene materials/behaviours.
Are you wondering whether I’m being melodramatic linking the above with a lack of safe drinking water and improved toilets? The statistics speak for themselves. Today in 2018 there are still approximately 2.1 BILLION people who lack access to safely managed drinking water and 61% of the global population (approximately 4.5 BILLION people) who continue to live without access to a safely managed toilet. Let that sink in for a moment. Close to a quarter of the world’s population without safe drinking water and over half without a safely managed toilet.
Meanwhile diarrhoeal disease, a significant proportion of which could be prevented through safe drinking water and adequate sanitation and hygiene, remains the second leading cause of death in children under five years old. There’s also the approximately 830 women who die every day from pregnancy- or childbirth-related complications and most of these are also preventable. Infections after childbirth are a common cause of complications resulting in death and the World Health Organization estimates that one in four health care facilities around the world do not have adequate access to clean water and soap.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, it’s estimated that one in ten girls miss school during their menstrual cycle, equating to as much as 20% of the school year missed. Many more drop out all together and in India, a recent study estimates that about 23% of girls drop out of school entirely when they reach puberty. There's very little choice if your school doesn't have a private, functioning toilet, no running water or you don't have the materials necessary to manage your period with dignity.
Easily preventable infections and disease, persistent barriers for women and girls in getting an education and joining the workforce, the personal risks of seeking out somewhere to bathe and go to the toilet after dark, taboos around menstruation, defecation and hygiene. This is the reality for so many people around the world. It's a matter of justice and equality, of fundamental human rights, that we achieve universal access.
The statistics are hard to wrap your head around. They are mind-bogglingly large, and the task of addressing all of these inequalities and injustice is intimidating. If you haven’t heard of the Sustainable Development Goals, now is about the time you should google them. SDG 3, 5 & 6 are the three I tend to focus on. SDG 6 – clean water and sanitation of course being the one I believe underpins all others. They are a set of 17 goals laid out in 2015 for us as a global community to reach by 2030. The task is huge, almost insurmountable, but the drive to achieve it is inspiring. More needs to be done by governments (especially our own here in Australia) but at institutional, research and community levels there has been some incredible progress. During the Millennium Development Goal era (pre-SDGs) we saw the number of people without access to safe drinking water halve and we’re getting closer every day to reaching open defecation free status globally (there’s still a way to go but we’re moving in the right direction!).
I could keep going, but in the interest of not getting carried away I’ll bring this all back to last week. The global WASH community came together in Brisbane for a five-day conference, this happens every two years and it’s been an interesting reflective process to think about where I was two years ago and where I am now. What has crystalised in my mind is the absolute importance of the role of women in achieving universal access to water and sanitation. Of course, on the other side of this, we’re never going to get close to tackling gender inequality if we don’t ensure women have access to safe drinking water, adequate toilets and the tools and knowledge to manage their periods privately and hygienically.
To some more technically minded WASH people the above is probably over-simplified. And it is in some respects – achieving universal access to water and sanitation and tackling inequality and justice are complex, interwoven, convoluted challenges that change with every context, with every country, and with every passing year. The SDGs are inherently interrelated and you could argue we’ll never fully achieve any without achieving them all. What I’ve described above is the tip of the iceberg in what the reality is, and by all means please get in touch if you want to know more, I know some pretty incredible people who specialise in different components of the above.
But the simplicity of what I’ve said is also kind of the point of a why statement. The thing that gets you up in the morning needs to be far bigger than yourself. It might not even be achievable in your lifetime. What it needs more than anything is to be a simple, clear driver that you can then use to figure out those skills and talents that you have, combined with your interest and passions, to give life to it and make it your life’s work. How you choose to tackle it may change. I know I won’t be doing the current work I’m doing forever and whether I stay in the WASH space remains to be seen. But that underlying desire to seek equality and justice, particularly for women, will be what directs me through life for years to come. And given my passions it's a sure bet I'll be working with women in health, WASH or some mix of the two over the years as I work out the specifics of my what and how.
One final thought on all this; they say that when you’re on the right path and you’re doing what makes you come alive – the work you can’t not do – it opens you up to a community of like-minded people. Those people who are also often treading paths not walked before and become an important support network. If last week was any indication, I have the absolute fortune of knowing some of the most incredible women (and men) who inspire me beyond words and give me the courage to follow the internal compass, even if no one else quite knows what the heck I’m doing.
With the intersect of the WASH conference and International Women’s Day I’m particularly grateful for all the WASH women, those I know and those I don’t, who continue to work hard to achieve something we, working in this space, all believe wholeheartedly in. They are smart, kind, open-hearted, courageous women scattered all over the world, who have equal parts tenacity, vision and humble compassion with an excellent dose of humour for good measure (you have to when talking about toilets and periods). Some like me are just starting out, while others have years and years of experience tucked under their belt. What blows me away each time though is just how genuine, open and approachable they all are. I’m certain this is only something you see when you’re surrounded by people who truly believe in what they are doing.
It’s needless to say last week was completely exhausting, challenging and also gave me the dose of perspective and reflection I needed as I grapple with ‘what next’. Having my why as an anchor point is what kept me afloat through it all. Throwing it back to you now, do you know what your why is? What drives you to get up and do what you do? Or maybe you’ve just begun to figure it out. Either way I’d love to hear from you on your own experiences or thoughts on mine :)
Sx
