Did you know that in the nation of Cambodia 10,000 children die each and every year from diarrheal diseases? Cambodia has the lowest access to sanitation of all the nations in Southeast Asia.
But that is starting to change, thanks in large part to the nonprofit agency WaterSHED, which has just released the LaBobo, a portable, inexpensive sink which is colorful and has a frog theme on it to catch the attention of children and encourage better hygiene.
Researchers from the University of California, Davis and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill surveyed 79 homes in a few provinces in Cambodia. What they found was frightening: only 5 percent of households have dedicated hand-washing equipment.
The study also found that more than half the households were eager to access to better hand washing methods, but couldn’t get enough water to sustain an adequate sanitation system.
The LaBobo is meant to solve that problem across Cambodia. The portable sink debuted across the country on Sunday, and it combines both functionality and aesthetics.
LaBobo has a custom low-flow spout to conserve water, a space for soap and a cute design that appeals to kids, according to a WaterSHED. It costs about $15 per unit and holds 15 liters of clean water.
Geoff Revell, regional program manager for WaterSHED, remarked:
“If you give people a bucket and a piece of soap, more often than not you will find the bucket ends up being used for something else. But if they spend some money on a product they like and actually want to own, it’s much more likely that they will keep using it and form a healthy habit of washing their hands regularly.”
If you would like to donate to this important project and encourage the United States to do more in this area, you can go to one of the Global Citizen links below. Children’s lives are too precious for us to merely look the other way.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/07/sanitation-cambodia-deaths_n_7737516.html
Watch The LeBobo Being Made
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.