The World's Longest Toilet Queue

Mon, 03/21/2011 - 12:15

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The World's Longest Toilet Queue is a mass mobilisation event and Guinness World Record attempt to bring together thousands of campaigners from across the world for advocacy around the issue of clean water and safe sanitation for all. Prior to World Water Day, March 22 2010, the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), End Water Poverty, and Freshwater Action Network began asking water and sanitation professionals, journalists, and advocates across the world to unite around a single mass campaign action: The World's Longest Toilet Queue. The campaign is designed to encourage individuals, organisations, and governments all over the world to demand real change as (so-called) developed country politicians gather for the High-Level Meeting on Sanitation and Water in Washington, DC (United States) on April 22 2010.

Communication Strategies

A Toilet Queue consists of a group of at least 25 people standing in line for at least 10 minutes in a public place to represent the 2.5 billion people who do not have access to safe sanitation. The Queue should lead to a toilet - either real, mocked-up, or represented through a banner or picture. The idea is that events carried out around the globe will perhaps offer creative, fun, and politically engaging ways of gaining media attention for the clean water cause.

In an effort to help galvanise participation, organisers set out to break the official Guinness World Record attempt for a queue in multiple locations across the world during the same time period (March 20-22 2010). They are drawing on an interactive website and social networking tools designed to help spread the word, share information, and highlight successful community engagement strategies. To personalise the response to the crisis, a graphic on the website features the specific names of people who have signed up for the Queue, each attached to a drawing of a figure holding a sign with advocacy messages like "Everyone has the right to taps and toilets!". An online guide contains resources, suggestions, and key messages; many other key materials are available on the World's Longest Toilet Queue website.

Development Issues

Health.

Key Points

Lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation kills children through preventable illnesses such as diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. Organisers claim that the number of children killed from this cause exceeds the death rate of children due to malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis (TB) combined. The United Nations (UN) estimates that half of girls who stop attending primary school in Africa do so because of the lack of safe and private toilets.

In launching the campaign, organisers want:

to ensure that access to sanitation and water is properly prioritised by all governments to prevent the deaths of over 4,000 children every day;
to ask developing country governments to invest more finances and make strong plans to get safe sanitation and water to their citizens; and
to ask developed country governments to provide support for developing countries, by providing "smart aid" that is geared specifically toward the world's economically poorest and most vulnerable communities.