Safer toilets for the children of The Moldova Project

You might be wondering “How can a toilet be unsafe?” but in Moldova such a thing is, sadly, possible. 

If you have ever been to rural Moldova, you had to face, at least once in your lifetime, the horror of a rural toilet. This is not to say that in rural communities there are no “normal” toilets, but we are speaking up about the toilets that vulnerable families use, that make you want to “hold it in” until you have no choice. 

Unfortunately, thousands of people have no choice but to use them daily. These are people who do not have the resources to make a sewage system and a modern toilet happen for their homes and families. And by “a modern toilet” we don’t mean a fancy toilet that greets you and wishes you a good day, but only one that doesn’t “relieve” you of your dignity too. We are writing about the awful toilets that hundreds of families still use, risking to lose inside them, not only their health and dignity but… their smaller children too. And, this, unfortunately, is not just a metaphor. We are fighting to expose a delicate but urgent issue and, hopefully, put an end to it. 

Each one of the approx. 100 families our organization works with uses an improvised toilet placed at the very back of their gardens. To put it simply, they used a box made of  deteriorated wood or slate, with an opening in the floor, placed over a deep hole in the ground and under the wide open sky. This means that the members of these families, small children included, have to endure very low temperatures during winter, and a pungent smell that makes your eyes water, during summer. But the most appalling thing of all is the fact that small children can fall through the opening and drown in the human waste beneath. Such tragedies can be prevented, and should!

We launched the fundraising campaign “A safe toilet for a safe child” in order to provide 25 socially vulnerable families with small children with new, safer toilets. Given that there is no plumbing in their communities, interior bathrooms are not an option. The next best thing would be a porta potty, professionally installed by a specialized company over a sealed hole in the ground. This would ensure not only the safety of those who use the facility, but would also benefit the entire community, by minimizing the ecological impact of waste on underground waters. And, for rural communities that use wells, the quality of underground water is absolutely crucial.

The costs of this project for a single family would be approx. $300, which is $7500 for the 25 families we are aiming, which is no small amount, especially for the common Moldovan citizen. Which is why we dearly need additional support.  

There are two ways in which vulnerable families deal with the challenges of their poverty: they fight what they can, and get used to the rest. But it is when you get used to danger that it becomes the most dangerous. That’s when parents stop accompanying their small children to the outdoor toilet, and when children stop paying attention while using it. Not long ago, a 6 year old boy fell into the hole and drowned, shocking the whole country and reminding us all about the life-threatening danger still standing at the back of some families’ gardens. And we must make a change before we get used to it again and are reminded about it by another tragedy. 

Please, consider donating for “A safe toilet for a safe child”.