Fact: More people in the world have cellphones than have access to a toilet.
Yeah. That means more people can type the word "toilet" with their thumbs than can actually use one. It's a situation that's hard to fathom for many of us — but it's a very real problem for the rest.
Art by Nick Chaffe as part of #TheShitShow.
Out of the more than 7 billion people here on our precious planet Earth, at least 6 billion of us have access to mobile phones. Meanwhile, according to the UN, fewer than 5 billion have access to working toilets.
These might seem like wholly dissimilar statistics, but ... what if the 6 billion of us with cellphones could actually use them to help solve the toilet problem?
Well, about that:
Who knew the poop emoji could be so powerful?
WaterAid has launched a phone app (with a campaign appropriately titled "Give a Shit") for World Toilet Day that lets you use everyone's favorite emoji to raise awareness while also helping provide toilets to people in need.
This is a thing that's happening.
315,000 kids die every year from diarrhea caused by unsafe sanitation. They are not living to see their fifth birthday because of something that can easily be prevented. More people with access to toilets means fewer kids dying from causes related to diarrhea.
This app — the WaterAid Emoji Creator — and the poop emoji are basically saving lives. Yeah. It's that important.
The premise of the Give a Shit app is simple: You use it to decorate a poop emoji and send it to your friends.
This is a dream for some people. Yes, it's silly, but c'mon, nothing says personalization quite like this:
It's all fun and games, but the app has the potential to solve a big problem, especially for women and girls.
Lack of toilets and unsanitary conditions affect children the most. But a lack of private toilets means that girls are more likely drop out of school, a problem made worse once they get their periods. And once girls have dropped out of school, they and the women in their communities often spend much time in their day walking long distances to collect water that isn't even clean.
It doesn't have to be this way. There are a lot of organizations working to solve these problems, but thanks to the Give A Shit app you can contribute to the cause in your own small way with just a few taps of your screen.
So who's with us? Let's #GiveAShit together and make toilets and clean water accessible for everyone.
This personalized poop emoji loves music and pizza. What will your poop emoji look like?
The app is available for iPhone (and the Android version is coming soon), so what are you waiting for? Download it and start sharing your #giveashit personalized emojis with the world.
Learn more about WaterAid's campaign and the app here: