Toilet toil

One of my toughest days working in this field was recently, when we went to the Mukuru slums to visit one of the sites operated by a business we are considering funding. I’ve been in some of the poorest places in the world - in places far afield as Peru, Pakistan, Honduras, India, South Africa, Brazil and beyond. But I don’t ever recall being as disheartened as during my visit here.

Perhaps my discomfort was brought about by the subject matter at hand. See, the business in question, along with a few others we are looking at, is trying to improve the conditions of sanitation facilities (read: bathrooms) available to the residents of these areas. We take our tiled, marble loos for granted in the West, thinking more about which fixture would go best with our new mirror.

But here, it’s a different story. Among the 300,000 - 500,000 (it fluctuates) residents of Mukuru, few if any have their own facilities. Imagine that, no place or privacy to perform bodily functions that everyone is obligated to deal with daily. This inevitably leads to very unpleasant and unsatisfactory conditions all around, a host of diseases and infections, and an unsafe river nearby. Related is the phenomenon of “flying toilets,” where waste is disposed of in plastic bags and hurled away from the house, a common practice after dark, when leaving one’s home in these parts can be quite dangerous.

Like many of the situations in which Acumen Fund operates, some see tragedy and others see a business model. A cottage industry of private “ablution facility” operators has sprung up, with going rates between Ksh 2-5 ($0.03-$0.07) to take care of pressing needs or have a shower. The company that took us out today is seeking to help these independent operators provide cleaner, more dignified facilities with proper environmental controls and, where possible, connections to running water. Another is seeking to build bigger, better, cleaner and higher-service facilities to serve this dreadfully underserved market need.

There were a couple bright spots to the day. We sat in on a business discussion among some of the facility operators. I managed to introduce myself in Swahili (Jina langu ni Eric, Natoka New York…), though of course thereafter I didn’t get a word of the 45-minute meeting. The people operating the nicest of the facilities were quite upbeat and proud, and one older woman couldn’t stop smiling and high-fiving us.

There are many intervening complications, like the capacity questions about local sewer systems, the lack of access to water sources, and the sheer challenge of building a profitable business on a 3 cent product. But we believe that if this is accomplished in an environmentally sound way, there may be a way to build a sustainable business that cuts down on disease and demoralization.

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