Jack Sim: Thinking and talking about toilets

Sumber:The Jakarta Post - 01 Agustus 2007
Kategori:Sanitasi
Meet Jack Sim. For the past 10 years, he has been talking about a subject that no one really wants to hear about -- toilets. Whenever he raises the topic, people start to laugh.

"There's a lot of humor in toilets, but we don't talk about it," said the 50-year-old founder of the Restroom Association of Singapore and the World Toilet Organization.

Growing up in Singapore, Sim developed an interest in toilets after reading in a newspaper that former Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said the state of the country's public toilets was one way of measuring its social graciousness.

Feeling embarrassed that his country had stinking public toilets, he began his own movement to wash out Singapore's foul-smelling status. In 1998, Sim established the Restroom Association of Singapore.

Three years later, he set up the World Toilet Organization after realizing that there were about 15 toilet associations all over the world without a headquarters. Every November around World Toilet Day, representatives of toilet associations all over the world meet to talk about toilet-related issues such as maintenance, sanitation, and water technology. World Toilet Day falls on November 19, the date when Sim established the World Toilet Organization.

"When I was in school, I was always dreaming," said Sim, who was the surprise guest at the Urban Water and Sanitation Regional Media Workshop organized by UN-Habitat from July 12 to 14 in Singapore.

With his sense of humor, Sim amused journalists from Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, India, China, Nepal, Vietnam, and Laos who took part in the three-day workshop.

Worldwide, about 42 percent of the population or 2.6 billion people don't have proper sanitation and most of them defecate in open spaces, waste water or plastic bags. As a result, about 2 million people, mostly children under 5, die of diarrhea every year.

For World Toilet Day in November, Sim is asking schools worldwide to submit photographs or videos of their toilets, which will be posted on the Web site of the World Toilet Organization.

He stressed that proper sanitation is not being addressed because people don't talk about toilets. "What we don't discuss, we don't improve. People go to the toilet six times a day, yet we are in a state of denial that we are toileting beings," said Sim, whose motto is to "live a useful life".

Sim studied at Whitley Secondary School, but never made it to university due to low grades. He tried distance learning for 15 years and earned a post-graduate diploma in international marketing from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He also spent a week last year at Harvard Business School learning about non-profit management.

"I was not a bright student. I didn't excel in my studies and could not write a thesis," said Sim.

Sim set up the world's very first toilet college in Singapore which trains workers to be professional toilet cleaners and fixers. Among the courses offered by the World Toilet College, which has the support of government ministries and private companies, are restroom design, restroom specialist training, and ecological sanitation.

According to Sim, Singapore's toilet cleaners earn a higher salary after undergoing hands-on training at the World Toilet College. In this tiny island of 4.2 million people, toilet cleaners earn S$700 (US$470) a month, but after attending training, their salaries increase to over S$1,000.

Sim is planning to set up another World Toilet College in Indonesia and at present, his foundation is undergoing the registration process.

In Aceh, his organization is working closely with the Aceh and Nias Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency in training engineers and architects on ecological sanitation.

When he was in Aceh, Sim learned a lesson on how to correctly build toilets for the tsunami victims. After constructing toilets for the Acehnese refugees, he saw that the toilets were spray-painted with red crosses.

Knowing that the toilets were vandalized by an Indonesian soldier, representatives of Sim's organization held a meeting with members of the Indonesian military. In the meeting, it was pointed out that the male and female entrance points to the toilets were together.

"After the meeting, we became friends with the person who was responsible for the spray painting of our toilets because he told us something that we didn't know," said Sim.

As a result of the meeting, Sim's organization diverted the male and female entrance points separately and "the person who did the spray painting was happy."

Sim pointed out that with proper management, all countries will be able to provide toilet facilities to all people.

"If Singapore was able to provide and improve its toilet facilities, other countries can also do it," said Sim.

Sim has visited Beijing, for instance, to convince and help officials renovate the city's public toilets for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. So far, Beijing has renovated 4,000 public toilet blocks.

"In the past, Beijing's toilets were pathetic, but now their toilets have become a tourist draw," he said, adding that a number of Beijing residents prefer to use the city's public toilets than their home toilets.

Most of the time, the public and governments agree with Sim each time he discusses the necessity of having toilets. However, their conformity does not mean that they will take action to provide toilets or improve poor sanitation.

"The way to convince the people about the necessity of having a toilet is to make it as a status symbol just like owning a television," said Sim.

"Some people say they don't need toilets and if you make use of a health story to appeal to them to have a toilet, they won't listen to it because they think it's complicated," said the father of four.

Sim strongly emphasized that the act of donors giving money for toilets does not solve the problem of poor sanitation since the money is inefficiently spent.

"Forty or 50 percent of donors' aid goes to the person doling out the money," he pointed out. "We need a more direct market-based solution, not donations."

"The philanthropy industry does not go according to human needs. It goes according to passion," Sim stressed.

Since he has adopted the mission to raise the standards of public toilets around the world and encourage good toilet habits, Sim feels that he is like a religious leader. Everyday, he is able to get more people to pay attention to toilet issues.

"Spiritually, my social work makes me feel very nice," said Sim.

As part of its efforts to improve sanitation, Sim's World Toilet Organizations sticks posters with powerful and shocking messages behind toilet cubicles. One poster referring to the rare act of using a clean toilet reads: "Millions of people are dying to do what you're doing right now." Richel Langit-Dursin, Contributor, Singapore(END)



Post Date : 01 Agustus 2007