More than 20 public elementary schools with 3000-4000 students participated in the first My School Toilet contest in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. The GTOs "My School Loo" sanitation and hygiene education materials were used in the contest, which were developed together with UN-Water. The celebration culminated with the award ceremony on World Toilet Day 2010.

The contest took place within a wider project to address and improve school sanitation facilities in the Philippines as well as to raise awareness of the necessity and importance of basic hygiene and sanitation.

The GTO would like to thank all of the students, teachers and all the other participants.

We would like to thank Robert Gensch (Sustainable Sanitation Center - Xavier University) for coordinating and organising the event, the Department of Education and all involved city officials for their help in facilitating the competition and the Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) for its financial support.

www.my-school-loo.org

Aware of 884 million people worldwide being without access to clean water and 2.6 billion people living without basic sanitation, which causes the death of 1.5 million children annually (more than die of AIDS, malaria and measles combined), the UN-member states voted in the General Assembly unanimously in favour of a resolution declaring the right to safe and clean water and sanitation as a human right. 443 million school days are lost each year as a result of water- and sanitation-related diseases.

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Having travelled around the world and met so many people of all nationalities the GTO’s travelling exhibition “Sanitation is Dignity” has finally completed the task set for it by the UN! And in order to mark the end of this extremely successful project the GTO has produced a magazine and report, which set out quite how many people around the world have been touched by its powerful message and gone so far as to put their voices and faces to the movement.

The GTO had been keen for ages to get all the players in the German SanWat sector together for a good old chinwag, and we were delighted when so many could meet on the 25th of March in the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in Berlin to discuss how we could better collaborate to achieve our common goals and pool our strengths. 

The GTO was also able to present the results of its sectoral survey which gave an illuminating insight into the make-up of the sector and threw up some interesting results. With so much to chew on it made for a great discussion, and one that we plan to continue at the next meeting of the group where we will consider how a more formalized network might be established.     

From the 4th to the 31st of March, 2010, the photographer Thomas Wimmerer will be holding his exhibition "klotographie". Wimmerer's work focuses on the representation of toilet seats in public conveniences, and in so doing provides an interesting perspective of a topic that is seldom taken seriously: sanitation provision. As part of the opening event on the 4th of March there will be an auction of private photos, and all the proceeds will be donated to the GTO. We'd like to express our sincerest thanks for this very generous contribution to the GTO cause, and encourage all of you not to miss this extraordinary exhibition. We're hoping there'll be brisk trade and that all of those involved have a great time!