LIXIL makes pioneering water and housing products that solve everyday, real-life challenges, making better homes a reality for everyone, everywhere.
A staggering 410 million people relieve themselves outside, out of necessity or custom. This can contaminate water sources and expose girls and women to the threat of violence and harassment.
Adequate handwashing facilities are lacking in homes and schools; many children are unable to practice proper hand-hygiene, the most effective way to prevent COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.
400,000 children under-five years of age die each year, which is equivalent to one child die every one and hald a minutes, from diseases* due to a lack of safe water, sanitation and basic hygiene.
Serious malnutrition and stunted growth in children have been associated with diarrhea and intestinal worm infections, often impacting them physically and mentally later in life. Schools in disadvantaged areas that lack proper hygiene and sanitation can especially affect girls during their period, causing many of them to drop out of school.
Roughly 2 billion people, or one in four of the global population, lack basic handwashing facilities at home. 802 million children do not have access to handwashing facilities such as running water and soap at school either. Children are unable to practice effective hand-hygiene, the first line of defense to protect them from various infectious diseases.
Children are losing lives without toilets and handwashing facilities.
* Diarrhoeal disease, cholera, dysentery, shigellosis, typhoid, malaria, pneumonia, hepatitis, acute respiratory infection (ARI), protein energy malnutrition, and soil transmitted helminths.
In 2015, the burden of dealing with poor sanitation and related problems cost some countries as much as 5 percent of GDP. Among world regions, Asia Pacific suffers the greatest loss at 1.1 percent. Africa loses 0.9 percent, Latin America and the Caribbean lose 0.6 percent and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East lose 0.4 percent.
The global economy lost an estimated $223 billion USD in 2015 because of poor sanitation. *1
Access to clean water and toilets and improved hygiene practices by all people will lead to economic recovery of developing countries by trillions of dollars over the next 20 years.*2*1 LIXIL and Oxford Economics: The True Cost Of Poor Sanitation (September 2016)
*2 “Mission-critical: Invest in water, sanitation and hygiene for a healthy and green economic recovery” by WaterAid (A new page will open)
- Jin Montesano
Director, Representative Executive Officer, Executive Vice President,
Human Resources, Communications, External Affairs, and Impact Strategy, and Chief People Officer, LIXIL Corporation
For only $25 USD, you can help one child access a toilet at home for a year or provide a school with 100 bars of soap. Your donation will be used to support LIXIL and UNICEF’s sanitation and hygiene programs.
Together, we can keep children healthy, safe, and learning at home and in school.
* "Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000-2022" by UNICEF and WHO's Joint Monitoring Programme report
https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/progress-on-household-drinking-water--sanitation-and-hygiene-2000-2022---special-focus-on-gender
UNICEF does not endorse any company, brand, product or service.