CRS provides food, health and nutrition among  other basic needs.

With assistance from the U.S. government and concerned parish donors, CRS built a water tank that allows families, who once had to travel more than a mile for water to simply turn on a tap and step back as they watch their water cans fill. Toilets, mud stoves, hand-washing stands, shower stalls and garbage pits have been great comforts for displaced residents.  Photo by Lana Slezic for CRS

Mayling Simpson-Hebert, a CRS regional technical advisor in East Africa, shares her dream of 100 percent sanitation coverage across the globe.

Happy World Toilet Day! Although it may be hard to believe, almost 40 percent of the world’s population has no access to a toilet. Imagine it: More than one out of every three people living on earth relieves themselves in the open.

Arbor loos are inexpensive toilets that first serve sanitation needs then later provide a rich source of nutrients for fruit trees. In Ethiopia, a family has built a basic privacy fence around the concrete toilet slab of this arbor loo. Photo by CRS Staff.

Simple toilets can make a significant health impact. Many families, though, are either unable to afford proposed latrine designs or simply don’t buy into the benefits. But one model, the “arbor loo,” is making headway. Designed by Peter Morgan in Zimbabwe for the African situation, it is affordable for most rural African households.

Key to the arbor loo’s success is how it serves double duty: first as a basic toilet, then as an extremely fertile pit for a fruit tree. The design provides a wealth of benefits:

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