Latrines--Restoring Health and Dignity to Cambodia

For those of us who have never lived without soap, we thought it might be useful to paint a picture of daily life for Cambodian communities that lack access to such an important resource.

Imagine that you’re a Cambodian village woman living with no toilet and no privacy. When you need to relieve yourself, you find a bush behind your home, near the water well and vegetable patch. Your neighbors pass by and pretend not to see you. Quickly, you pull up your Sampot dress and dash back into your home to finish cooking dinner for the children, which requires handling raw poultry with soiled hands. Your sick infant cries. He’s suffering from fever and diarrhea. His loose stool gets on your skin and clothing each time you pick him up and try to comfort him, as there are no diapers in your village. He needs to see a doctor, but getting there requires hitchhiking the entire 200km journey. You remember a story about a village woman being picked up on the national highway never to return. You don’t know if the hospital would even admit your child, because there are too many patients with the same problem. The risk is too great. You won’t make the trip. You decide instead to give him a bath to clean his bottom. Perhaps it will sooth his nerves. As the bath runs, you pour in some laundry detergent, the only soap available in your remote Cambodian village.

It may seem surreal, but scenes like these are common across the outskirts of Cambodia. Today, 75% of rural Cambodians lack access to soap for handwashing, which is one of the most important steps anyone can take to stay free of illness. This is a nation where something as simple as a bar of soap is seen as more of a luxury item than a basic human resource. In turn, many Cambodian children get sick with diseases like diarrhea and pneumonia because their households lack this basic hygiene tool.

With the help of NGO and hospital partners, we have been making strides against preventable illness at home and in schools. Last year we delivered hygiene education to 55,000 children. 

We envision a Cambodia — and a world — where no child suffers because there isn't any soap available. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but at least the journey has begun.