GTO held student rally on world health day at Berlin's Potsdamer Platz

During the rally, which had "Save lives with toilets" as its motto, the students highlighted the significant contribution that sanitation makes towards human health and the fatal consequences stemming from the lack of sanitation for a large part of the world‘s population. Dressed as nurses and carrying stethoscopes, toilet bowls and painted toilet seats they emphazised their massage: "Sanitation is the best preventive medicine."

State secretary of the BMZ (Ministry of economic co-operation and development) Hans-Jürgen Beerfeltz, who was attending the rally, acknowledged the civil commitment of the students and thanked the GTO.

The creative presentations were prepared by the students as part of our project "Toiletised World". The project is funded by the city of Berlin and the BMZ.

From August 6 to August 8, 2010 the “Friedensfestival” took place at Berlin Alexanderplatz . 

The GTO attracted publicity with our “Where would you hide?”-exhibition for two days. Many interesting conversation had been held and we have received support from over 100 (!) visitors who made a stand in our “Voices for Sanitation”-photo campaign.

We want to thank the organisers for the successful festival and also of course all our new supporters of our effort - not to forget the GTO-volunteers that made our appearance a success.

“Where would you hide?”
“Voices for Sanitation”

It’s been 100 years since the lucky folk of Dresden have had access to a municipal water supply, something for which most of the world's population are still waiting! To mark this happy event, the Sanitation is Dignity exhibition hit the streets of central Dresden to remind people that not everybody in the world shares their good fortune. The event was a tremendouse success with yet more people "lending" their voices to the cause.  

The Sanitation is Dignity exhibition took to the road and made an appearance in Potsdam's railway station as part of Africa Day. This was the first time that the exhibition had been shown in a shopping centre

We'd like to thank the numerous vistors who visited the exhibition and had a photo taken or made a statement to express their outrage at the worldwide sanitation crisis. We would also like to thank the organisers of Africa Day.

The GTO took the "Where Would You Hide?" exhibition to the Unite-the-Nation Peace Festival.

The Unite-the-Nation peace Festival took place last Saturday (25. July 2009) in front of the Brandenburg Gate, and once again the GTO was there to join the party. With folklore and music the festival created an excellent atmosphere that brought together people from all strata of society, and despite the terrible weather the many visitors testified to its success. And that was before Nina Hagen had even showed up!

We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to the many visitors who demonstrated their interest in our work.

From the 30th of March until the 3rd of April we presented information on sanitation at our public exhibition WASsERLEBEN at the international trade fair and congress for water and wastewater: WASSER BERLIN.

In cooperation with AG Water from the NGO network "Forum Umwelt und Entwicklung" (Forum on Environment and Development) the German Toilet Organization provided information on the critical interrelation between sustainable sanitation and health, poverty reduction, economic growth, social development and environmental protection.

We were able to welcome an amazing array of people to our stand; teachers, students and many more. It really provided us with an excellent opportunity to present our school programme "Klobalisierte Welt" (toiletised world) which we will launch in 2009 as part of Global Learning in Germany.

Download of the abstract of "Klobalisierte Welt". Please note that the abstract is in German only.
 

The ISH, which was held between the 10th and the 14th of March 2009 in Frankfurt, is the world's largest trade fair focused on the bathroom experience, building, energy, air-conditioning technology, and renewable energies.

The German Toilet Organization was invited to be a featured exhibitor with its exhibition “Where Would You Hide?" and presented its "Sanitation is Dignity" Campaign to an appreciative audience.

With this press conference the AG Water drew attention to the world wide emergency in sanitation and to alternative waste water disposal systems.

Under the slogan "100,000 sustainable toilets as a model for the future" the AG Water handed over a policy paper to the State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Mr. Erich Stather.

 
Toilets were the focus of the day, and since over 50 toilet bowls served as seats for this "Public Session", this was quite literally the case! The toilets represented sustainable sanitary concepts and this tied in with the sustainable toilet models that were presented.  

On the 21st of November 2007, the UN launched the "International Year of

Santation" at its Headquarters in New York. The GTO had the honour of presenting
some of their campaign materials for 2008 at the event.

Check out the UNICEF-video to get an impression.
© UNICEF