No toilet, no wedding

Kenya-based video journalist Ruud Elmendorp recently produced this short trailer (on behalf of Waste.NL) on a young woman that refuses to marry her boyfriend – until his family builds a proper toilet:

The story is about a boy who is in love with the daughter of a school teacher. Much to the dismay of his father, she refuses because she finds their toilet unusable and refused to have to go to the bush for defecation.

The women’s group has filed a number of complaints due to poor sanitation and present this to the village chief, incidentally the uncle of the boy. He is quite amazed by this and decides to call the government sanitation adviser.

After an animated session with the villagers and the chief, many decide to go for suitable toilets. The film ends happily with the girl accepting the marriage proposal as the sanitation issues have been solved.

Ruud regularly produces interesting video material from East Africa that we have also featured on AfriGadget, btw.

use a toilet and get paid

Have you ever used a toilet and got paid afterwards?

A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in India has just claimed to be doing this. From January 15th 2008 onwards, users of a local toilet system based on ecological sanitation (ecosan) principles will be paid the sum of 10 paise* for each visit.

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By doing this, the Society for Community Organization and Peoples Education (SCOPE) wants to create an awareness for the value of human waste: “urine and faeces are so rich in nutrients for farm production that they are worth buying”.

The first Ecosan Community Compost Toilet in the country in Saliyar Street is functioning for the past 18 months. Every fortnight on an average 250 liters of urine is collected, the same is used for farming purposes. Already the Tamilnadu Agricultural University is studying the use of urine as liquid fertilizer for the past one year, under an MoU signed by SCOPE with the University. WASTE of Netherlands has funded, Rs. 4 lakhs for the two-year research project. (src)

Apparently, this really is the first time anywhere in the world that toilet users are being paid. What a smart approach!

* 100 paise = 1 Indian rupee = 0,01774 EUR