2.6 Billion People: The World Toilet Organization at MercyCorps

Press Release

Today at Mercy Corps, the Action Center hosted a free lecture by Jack Sim, founder of the World Toilet Organization. For over ten years, Sim has been drawing attention and funding to the collaborative work by NGOs, faith groups, governments and academics toward solving a pressing problem: the 2.6 billion people on earth who do not have access to safe sanitation and a clean toilet every day.

Congressman Blumenauer opened the public lecture with an update on his pending legislation, HR 3568 The Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act. "Every 20 seconds, a child dies from an illness connected to dirty water, and today alone 200 million hours will be spent, mostly by women and girls, collecting water," Congressman Blumenauer said. "But we know how to solve this problem, and it's an area of rare, bipartisan support. Passing this bill will impact the poorest of the poor throughout the world on all the things we're here to talk about -- health, school attendance, food security, nutrition, environmental quality and economic development."

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