{"id":446539,"date":"2010-03-19T08:05:43","date_gmt":"2010-03-19T12:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.circleofblue.org\/waternews\/?p=13011"},"modified":"2010-03-19T08:05:43","modified_gmt":"2010-03-19T12:05:43","slug":"david-kuria-sanitation-and-toilet-entrepreneur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/446539","title":{"rendered":"David Kuria: Sanitation and Toilet Entrepreneur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Circle of Blue Radio\u2019s Series 5 in 15, where we\u2019re asking global thought leaders 5 questions in 15 minutes, more or less.\u00a0 These are experts working in journalism, science, communication design, and water.\u00a0 I\u2019m J. Carl Ganter.\u00a0 Today\u2019s program is underwritten by Traverse Internet Law<\/a>, tech savvy lawyers, representing internet and technology companies.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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Play “David Kuria: Interview with a Sanitation and Toilet Entrepreneur”<\/a> <\/em><\/div>\n
powered by Vertio.net<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In the sub-Saharan region, 80 percent of recorded illnesses are water-born diseases, and more than two-thirds of these people don\u2019t have access to basic sanitation.\u00a0 While access to safe drinking water is gaining importance in the political arena, it\u2019s still hard to talk about restrooms and toilets, but today I\u2019m speaking with a man who really does know toilets.\u00a0 David Kuria is founder of EcoTact<\/a>.\u00a0 It\u2019s an organization based in Nairobi that\u2019s really transforming sanitation systems in Kenya and the greater sub-Saharan region.\u00a0 EcoTact\u2019s campaign breaks down the stereotypes about sanitation.\u00a0 It\u2019s also created a sustainable model for the Ikotoilet,<\/a> a community hub of stores and services all built around a public toilet. <\/em><\/p>\n

David, tell me about how water-born diseases and basic sanitation are related, and what kinds of transformations need to be made in health and sanitation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…the first thing you see, beautiful thing, is a toilet. When you come to the city of Nairobi, you\u2019ll be shocked. And the next thing you\u2019ll be asking is what is this? It\u2019s a public toilet. We are putting toilet monuments just to try and bring back the importance to our people of public convenience and public toilets.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We are trying to look at social transformation, economic transformation, and to some extent political transformation as far as sanitation is concerned.\u00a0 I think this is quite a distinct situation from the West, because from the word go, when we are talking about sanitation, back home we don\u2019t talk about it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a less topical subject that, at homes, we don\u2019t talk about toilets at homes, we don\u2019t talk about toilets at school, and even at the political level.\u00a0 When you look at the close spectrum, we are moving ahead very well in addressing the water situation, but nobody wants to be associated with sanitation.\u00a0 It\u2019s a taboo in African culture.\u00a0 To us, what we are trying to say is, \u201cHow do we break these cultural barriers, economic barriers and political barriers to be able to accelerate sanitation access to our people?\u201d\u00a0 Again, more than half of the people across the region have no sanitation.\u00a0 They\u2019re either using open defecation, even in cities, or what we are calling in Nairobi, The Flying Toilet, just using the polythene bags and throwing them away.\u00a0 It\u2019s really the key concern of lack of access, but also the behavior transformation that\u2019s associated with improving dignity, improving public health of our people.<\/p>\n

Sanitation is not something that\u2019s openly discussed in sub-Saharan culture or really anywhere, so how are you working to get beyond the social taboo that restrooms and toilets have in the region and really anywhere?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What we are doing in my company is an initiative we launched two years ago called the Ikotoilet, which is derived from ecological systems.\u00a0 Now the idea of Ikotoilet again goes beyond the toilet.\u00a0 How do you break those cultural barriers of sanitation or toilets that we cannot talk about?\u00a0 We have gone beyond that, what we are calling thinking beyond the toilet, by putting up one aspect of sustainability, and that\u2019s what we are calling the toilet mall, where you can go to the toilet for more than the pee and poo function, you can have your shoe polished, you can transfer money ATM, we have a system in the toilet, you can buy your soft drink, there\u2019s a fresh cold drink, and trying to lead a transformation in the social thinking associated with a toilet.\u00a0 That is critical.\u00a0 Now the other aspect is how do you transform our behavior aspect of this?<\/p>\n

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We have engaged several celebrities in the country, including the beauty pageant, to talk about toilets. Everybody sees the beauty pageant. There are religious leaders going to the toilet and talking about it in public. Now we have been able to engage our political heads up to the very high level, including the Vice President, including the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in Kenya.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We have engaged several celebrities in the country, including the beauty pageant, to talk about toilets.\u00a0 Everybody sees the beauty pageant.\u00a0 There are religious leaders going to the toilet and talking about it in public.\u00a0 Now we have been able to engage our political heads up to the very high level, including the Vice President, including the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister in Kenya, for them to come and visit the toilet, and the public is like, \u201cHow can they visit a public toilet?\u201d\u00a0 Really, it\u2019s purely trying to reinforce the importance of sanitation within the country.\u00a0 Apart from having the toilet mall, each mall is being served by ten young people, boys and girls.\u00a0 Again, it\u2019s a pull of employment creation.\u00a0 This is providing leading number of young people engaged, some in shoe shining, others cleaning the facility.\u00a0So within one facility of 50 square meters, we are having ten young people fully engaged into really viable employment opportunity.\u00a0 It\u2019s really that transformation where we are trying to pull people.\u00a0 The other key aspect is again, in our tradition, most across Africa, is that you don\u2019t see a toilet when you go there.\u00a0 It\u2019s something hidden.\u00a0Nobody needs to know you are going to a toilet.\u00a0 Now we have brought that to a front.\u00a0 For us to be able to address sanitation, we need to bring sanitation on the fore, and we have done that even at schools, so that as you go to the school, the most first thing you see, beautiful thing, is a toilet.\u00a0 When you come to the city of Nairobi, you\u2019ll be shocked.\u00a0 And the next thing you\u2019ll be asking is what is this?\u00a0 It\u2019s a public toilet.\u00a0 We are putting toilet monuments just to try and bring back the importance to our people of public convenience and public toilets.\u00a0 Really, those are some of the transformations that we are undertaking across the country.<\/p>\n

Some might find some wry humor here, but can you give us a few examples of responses you\u2019ve been getting and how are people reacting to the idea of publicizing the private space of the restroom?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first time when we launched it last year, it came from the media.\u00a0 When the Catholic Bishop… you know the blessing when they normally bless their facilities… he was blessing the toilet, and everybody in the media was landing, \u201cOh, you go there, there\u2019s holy shit.\u201d\u00a0 They were talking about holy shit.\u00a0 That\u2019s really creating humor, but again the message gets passsed.\u00a0 Very interesting to see the beauty pageant, Miss Kenya, visiting the public toilet, and everybody\u2019s like, \u201cOh, what is she doing?\u201d\u00a0 To me, it\u2019s really incredible when one of my workers, because again even been getting employees in the initial start was very difficult, but one of the workers when the Vice President visited in the toilet and he greeted the girl and talked to the girl, it was unbelievable.\u00a0 The girl had to tell the whole story in her house and family, \u201cYou know, I met the Vice President.\u00a0 Where else would you meet a Vice President?\u00a0 In the loo, yeah?\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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When the Catholic Bishop… you know the blessing when they normally bless their facilities… he was blessing the toilet, and everybody in the media was landing, \u201cOh, you go there, there\u2019s holy shit.\u201d They were talking about holy shit. That\u2019s really creating humor, but again the message gets passed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She became very open, and she wanted to be identified that I work for Ikotoilet, and they have (a) uniform, and she\u2019s comfortable in wearing it at home, \u201cYou know, I work with Ikotoilet.\u201d\u00a0 She has a photo of the Vice President in the toilet talking to her.\u00a0 To me, it\u2019s that excitement, for us to break the barrier associated with toilet and be able to solve really the very many casualties that are dying from water-born diseases.\u00a0 It really brings out, again to us, it\u2019s that debate that needs to come out.\u00a0 We need to engage and really bring out in the media, bring out on a political level, where we are able to engage and looking for solutions.\u00a0 To me, I think, one of the critical things when I was starting this initiative, and really made several inquiries, I\u2019m an architect by profession, was that don\u2019t dare put soft drink in a toilet.\u00a0 Nobody in Kenya and outside that will be able to buy that.\u00a0 Today, you go to the Ikotoilets in the city, and people are queueing over the lunch hour to grab a Coke and some snack in the toilet.\u00a0 To me, really a transformation within less than a year, that\u2019s really unbelievable that all of us urban people are now queuing in the toilet.\u00a0 It has also become like now a point of really a signature in terms of location.\u00a0You\u2019ll find people talking about can we meet at Ikotoilet on that street.\u00a0 The most visible thing around the street.<\/p>\n

So David, tell me how education plays into all of this and how are the governments participating?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have now started the initiative, what we are calling the Ikotoilet for Schools, again trying to transform, and we have beautiful toilets in our schools that kids want to use, want to be associated with.\u00a0 When you go to the school, and that\u2019s the most beautiful thing in a school, it\u2019s the school signature.\u00a0 For you to be, \u201cWow, in our school, we have the Ikotoilet.\u201d\u00a0 To me, it\u2019s most of these problems, especially social problems, can be addressed by purely some of social transformation, missions, and social marketing, where we are telling people let\u2019s make sanitation an accepted subject, let\u2019s talk about it.\u00a0 Again, like some ten years back about HIV-AIDS, nobody in Africa wanted to talk about it.\u00a0 Today, now, people have opened up and are able to talk about it and solve the problem.\u00a0 Now sanitation, despite killing more people than HIV-AIDS and polio combined in Africa, nobody wanted to talk about it because people think, <\/p>\n

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Nobody wants to talk about that subject. We need to open up the debate; we need to put it on the table and for us to get solutions.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cOh, it\u2019s about shit.\u201d And nobody wants to talk about that subject.\u00a0 We need to open up the debate; we need to put it on the table and for us to get solutions.\u00a0If you look at our government of the Sahara Region, the financial and budget allocation for sanitation, it\u2019s not fair, and we need to address it at that high level.\u00a0 We need to see governments allocating sanitation budgets equivalent to water budgets.\u00a0 You put sanitation, and you put installation on water so that we have save water and sanitation as a combined piece.\u00a0 That\u2019s when we can now talk about hygiene promotion in earnest.<\/p>\n

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DAVID KURIA:<\/strong><\/div>\n
\"David<\/div>\n
David Kuria is founder of EcoTact, a Nairobi-based organization transforming sanitation systems in greater sub-Saharan Africa.<\/div>\n
More about David Kuria…<\/a><\/div>\n
Photo Copyright World Economic Forum www.weforum.org<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

How many Ikotoilet installations do you have in Kenya right now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We have now finalized 40 facilities across the country, and we are currently serving approximately 30,000 people everyday.\u00a0 We are hoping by June next year, we should be able to have at least 100 facility installations across the country and also in Zanzibar, in Tanzania, and targeting countries to serve 100,000 people by June next year everyday.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s really incredible.\u00a0 So, what about taking this beyond Kenya, perhaps as a sustainable model?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What I see is that to me it\u2019s really an applicable model.\u00a0 When we started in the city of Nairobi, it was more for the piloting, including with the government.\u00a0 It was like, \u201cAre you sure this is something?\u201d\u00a0 Today we are getting requests across municipalities in Kenya and now in Tanzania, Arusha municipality, Dar Es Salaam and now Zanzibar.\u00a0 To us, it is that people can now see a solution, that not only an investment solution, but a potential business solution and implementation, and also the potential for recovery within less than five years.\u00a0 To me, the investment is heavy because each Ikotoilet is costing about $20,000, but we are able to recover that within three to five years.\u00a0 Really, that\u2019s a major achievement, if we can be able to recover that and re-invest in sanitation.\u00a0 We are hoping that that could be a potential solution in sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s next for you, what\u2019s next for your campaign now that you\u2019ve entered the social and media arena, where do you plan to take your marketing strategy for the Ikotoilet?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite interesting.\u00a0 When I started the model two years back, because to me I was looking at the social transformation and sustainable aspect, and I thought in African context, sanitation or the issue of the toilet is the most difficult part.\u00a0 I said, why don\u2019t I give it a shot, try and see how far we can be able to revolutionize this.\u00a0 Now the same approach, the same modeling, can be done to other social services, including unemployment in Kenya and really the region, the water crisis, and really market approach in agriculture and other things.\u00a0 To me, it\u2019s really a model that can be evolved by, and really we can borrow from the distribution of the cell phone.\u00a0 Within five years, you go to the poorest slums in the city of Nairobi, and you\u2019ll get men and women with cell phones.\u00a0 It\u2019s expensive, but it\u2019s a status thing.\u00a0 They want to be associated with it.\u00a0 It\u2019s a dignative thing.\u00a0 We need to package sanitation and some of our basic social services to that level of marketing and ensure that everybody wants to be associated with that.\u00a0 It\u2019s clean.\u00a0 It\u2019s a dignity issue, and really it\u2019s satisfying.\u00a0 Everybody\u2019s talking about it.<\/p>\n

Thank you, David.\u00a0 We\u2019ve been speaking with David Kuria, founder of Ecotact and the Ikotoilet.\u00a0 To learn more about Ecotact and other projects, be sure to tune in to Circle of Blue online at CircleofBlue.org<\/a>. Our theme is composed by Nadev Kahn, and Circle of Blue Radio is underwritten by Traverse Legal, PLC, internet attorneys specializing in trademark infringement litigation<\/a>, copyright infringement litigation<\/a>, patent litigation and patent prosecution<\/a>.\u00a0 Join us gain for Circle of Blue Radio\u2019s 5 in 15.\u00a0 I\u2019m J. Carl Ganter.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Circle of Blue Radio\u2019s Series 5 in 15, where we\u2019re asking global thought leaders 5 questions in 15 minutes, more or less.\u00a0 These are experts working in journalism, science, communication design, and water.\u00a0 I\u2019m J. Carl Ganter.\u00a0 Today\u2019s program is underwritten by Traverse Internet Law, tech savvy lawyers, representing internet and technology companies. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5510,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5510"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}