from the
electric newpaper
Mr Toilet's sitting
pretty
He raises stink about dirty loos in
S'pore.
Now Harvard wants to study his organisation, and National
Geographic wants to feature it in a show.
By Leong Ching 18 October 2006
FLUSHED with success.
That's what you can say of Mr Jack Sim's work with toilets.
Mr Sim is the founder of the World Toilet Organisation (WTO). It is
based in Singapore and has 47 members, including Japan, Britain and
the US.
Some people used to laugh when his work with toilets was first
written about. Well, he's having the last laugh now because:
National Geographic channel is to show a documentary on the
WTO.
Harvard University is writing a case study on it.
And Mr Sim has been named Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the
Schwab Foundation of Switzerland, jointly with the Ministry of
Community Development, Youth and Sports.
Armed with a vision and a sense of humour, he works for good
sanitation across the world, lobbying for funds to build toilets in
developing countries.
Mr Sim said there are 2.6 billion people in the world who have no
toilets.
'The story of Singapore's economic progress runs parallel to its
toilet development,' he said.
'From no toilets to disgusting toilets... to professional restroom
specialists. Singapore is the model for the world to follow.'
And now, Mr Sim's story will be made into a documentary and shown
worldwide next year.
Earlier this year, Mr Sim got a call from local documentary maker
Viswa Sadasivan of The Right Angle.
Mr Sadasivan told him they were pitching the idea of a documentary
on the WTO to National Geographic Channel and asked if he was
game.
The veteran journalist and the crusading toilet builder met and
took a few months to put together a pitch, which convinced the
channel that it was worth funding.
Said Mr Sadasivan: 'I found Jack to be a man of exceptional
foresight with the courage to confront a dirty issue... a global
revolutionary in his own right.'
More recently, Harvard University got in touch with Mr Sim to say
it wants to write a case study about the WTO. Mr Sim, who owns a
building materials company with a turnover of $10 million a year,
laughs along when anyone makes a joke about taking toilets as
seriously as he does.
After all, he knows that a bit of 'toilet humour' is sometimes the
best way to get people interested in the subject.
And for that, he has Thailand's Mr Mechai Viravaidya, - better
known as Mr Condom - to thank.
Mr Mechai, who chairs the Population and Community Development
Association of Thailand, is famous for educating the public there
about family planning and safe sex.
'Toilets, like condoms, are taboo. I reckoned that if he can do it
with condoms, I should learn from him,' said Mr Sim. 'He taught me
a very important lesson: Don't take yourself too seriously. People
will laugh at you. You must laugh with them. And after that,
they'll listen to your real messages.'
They became friends and Mr Mechai is now on the WTO advisory
board.
Mr Sim's interest in toilets began around 1962, when he was growing
up in a village in Lorong Ong Lye.
'My mother told me I was old enough to use the village common
toilet. But I did not rejoice. The sanitation in our village worked
on the bucket system,' he said.
'The bucket gets real ugly after breakfast and also those giant
green houseflies were very annoying for a 5-year-old.'
He ended up using the chamber pot in the privacy of their
house.
In 1996, then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said: 'Let the
cleanliness of our public toilets be a measurement of our social
graciousness.'
Mr Sim said: 'I started asking myself many questions: Why do people
behave badly in public toilets but not at home?
'I've always wanted to do volunteer work and thought, 'Perhaps the
toilet is my calling!' Gradually, I decided to do something about
it. I finally got the Restroom Association of Singapore officially
registered in 1998.'
In 1999, he read in a Japanese magazine that there was a Japan
Toilet Association, so he contacted the officers, who invited him
to their Asia-Pacific Toilet Symposium in Kitakyushu.
'I asked them where was the world's HQ for discussing the toilet
but was told there was none,' said Mr Sim.
And so he started the WTO, a non-profit organisation that aims to
provide clean public toilets without additional stress on the
environment.
It organises conferences, does research and runs disaster relief
projects. Members are from restroom associations or like-minded
bodies from around the world.
'I am so glad to be able to depart from the rat race, and to find
peace with myself and the world,' said Mr Sim.
'Many people wish to do the same... Well, they should have a long
think about it. It's no secret where I do my best thinking.'