Sim has a message from Singapore: Love Thy Loo
Jack Sim, the world’s Toiletman who has transformed the city-state’s public hygiene system, has now turned his attention to India
Ashish Kumar Mishra MUMBAI
TOILETS in an Orissa village may not be the best place to spend your birthday in. But that’s exactly what 50-year-old Jack Sim did this year on March 5. Known as
Toiletman for promoting better sanitation across the world, Mr Sim could not resist peeping into the country restrooms even as he was holidaying. And loo behold, the
picture wasn’t pretty.
“India has been exotic although I don’t enjoy the toilets,” Mr Sim says, recalling his sojourns in several places across the country, besides Orissa. The man who had
successfully run a campaign to make toilets in Singapore cleaner and spread the mission to many other countries, is now busy tying up partnerships to work the same
magic in India.
He will have his hands full. India and China, the rising economic powers, account for a fifth of the world’s 2.6 billion people who lack access to toilets. Public urination and
defecation are part of the culture, even among the affluent. On the other hand, large slums and vast swathes of countrysides simply don’t have the infrastructure, leaving
people to do the thing out in the open. Much of the incidence of water-borne diseases is traced to poor sanitation.
Mr Sim says he is struck by the notions prevalent in India. While even the poorest of people want to dress up well, they leave the toilets filthy, stinking and unusable by
the next guy. “They want to look good, but why not the toilets?” he wonders. Here, the campaign has to first sell the idea of toilets; make them glamourous, even a status
symbol.
“I want to sell toilets like Gucci does its handbags and Rolex its watches,” he opens up. And that’s what he has done over the past decade as an international activist with
a cistern-full of funny and innovative ideas.
At 40, Mr Sim gave up his flourishing construction business and founded the World Toilet Organisation (WTO). “I figured out that more than money, time was important.
So, I decided that for the rest of my years I will spend doing something that I like,” he says. That happened after Goh Chok Tong, who was the then prime minister of
Singapore, observed that the state of public restrooms was one way to measure social graciousness. The tiny city-state may now be a model of public hygiene, but those
days, it had terrible toilets, he recounts. Although, Singapore had been running a clean public toilet campaign for over 20 years, the campaign had borne little result. So,
inspired by the toilet associations in Japan, he decided to start his own movement to flush away Singapore’s foul toilet reputation.
He established the Restroom Association of Singapore (RAS) in 1998. He also realised that while there were other toilet associations doing good work in Singapore, there
was no channel to facilitate information sharing and gathering of resources. “There was a lack of synergy and I took on the task of connecting everybody together under one
umbrella organisation,” he explains. That is how he founded the WTO in 2001. With only 15 members from Singapore, today, the organisation has members from 44
counties and has partnered with various financial institutions, including the ADB and UBS, for donating toilets.
Furthermore, Mr Sim is also planning to launch a toilet college in Indonesia. Thanks to his organisation’s efforts, there is greater appreciation of the role of toilets in health
and happiness. He has also been able to promote November 19 as the World Toilet Day.
But all this had not been easy. The campaign revolved around a subject that most people avoided an open discussion about or spoke in euphemisms. While they had no
issue discussing a dreaded disease or a spreading social problem, the loo was taboo. They failed to appreciate that one child dies every 11 seconds somewhere in the world
from diarrhoea, a waterborne disease often resulting from improper sewage.
It was then that the Toiletman turned to Mr Condom. Thai politician Mechai Viravaidya, who had popularised condoms in his country with innovative campaigns such as
condom-blowing contests and condom-themed restaurant, was one of the rare social entrepreneurs who had brought issues from under the carpet and effected the change.
“Mr Condom told me if you are really serious, then make sure its funny,” Mr Sim adds. “So, I turned the whole thing into a joke even as I was pursuing it seriously.”
His idea is simple — popularise and sell toilets so that everybody has access to sanitation. His presentations began to get peppered with humour, using laughter as an
excuse to carry on the conversation. Just last week, the Toiletman says he was addressing a sanitation conference at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), organised by the
City Government of Makati, in Manila. After a gruelling 20-minute lecture on the awareness and need of sanitation in the world, the Toiletman thought he had made quite an
impression. But a gentleman from the 240-odd seated crowd asked, “What’s this thing about toilets? You could have easily named your organisation World Sanitation
Organisation, instead of the World Toilet Organisation.” The crowd broke into fits of laughter. The Toiletman thought, “Six years on, I am still answering the same questions.”
Not to disappoint, he replied with a big smile, “Sanitation is for a room full of intelligent people, the word toilet appeals more to the masses, including fools like me.”
Today, his organisation works in tandem with the UNICEF, the WHO and various other agencies all over the world. Through its efforts, the public toilets in Singapore have
improved significantly while Beijing has allocated $100 million to build almost 4,000 world-class toilets for the 2008 Olympics. The organisation is also working actively in Sri
Lanka and is involved in the preparation of guidelines and manuals for sanitation, solid waste and wastewater management.
The serious progress has not lessened the fun in the campaign. Mr Sim says that across the world, he is always met with a knowing smile. Many find it difficult not to
laugh at him, but he says it’s exactly that funny impression that he wants to give. Mr Sim evokes humour in just about everything he does. A tagline in the donation section
of his website reads, ‘Give a potty, Go on, Ease them’. Furthermore, there is also a World Toilet College, in association with Singapore Polytechnic, where the organisation
offers short-term courses in toilet design, maintenance, cleanliness and sanitation technologies. If that isn’t an indicator of Sim’s funny bone, there are also toilet games like
Urgent game, Toilet Quest, Catch a Shit and Toilet Splash that visitors to his site, www.worldtoilet.org, can play.
Cut back to India, and he throbs with ideas. He wants to rope in Bollywood filmmakers to spread the message ‘Love Thy Loo’. He also plans to ask parents to arrange
marriage for their daughters only in homes that have a loo. His good-humoured nature extends even to the name of his four children — Faith, Truth, Worth and Earth. “Very
simple names, aren’t they?” he asks. Definitely, but don’t his children, who are still in school, feel bad about their father being called the Toiletman? “They know their father
is a Toiletman and they laugh at it, along with their friends,” he says. His wife too does not seem to be too concerned by his job or his moniker. “She had told me that as
long as I am happy with I am doing, she too is,” he adds.
ashishkumar.mishra@timesgroup.com
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