Sing

©  2008  Rose George

Gino Federici, a Las Vegas-based singer, has set up a rather unusual website. Singing for toilets or sanitation is rare but not unheard of: The Mozambican singer Feliciano dos Santos, who sings regularly about water and sanitation, was recently awarded a Goldman Environmental Prize for his efforts. One of his early songs promoted UNICEF latrine slabs and included these lines: “Mothers, listen to me; grandmothers, listen to me, she doesn’t listen to me. The slab is so good; the slab is easy to clean.” So good on Gino Federici, even if paying a dollar for every flush and then advocating non-flushing composting toilets is a bit odd. I suppose a dollar for every ladle of ash isn’t so catchy. Talking of heroes, I’m going to have stop castigating Matt Damon for talking about water more than sanitation. At a Clinton Global Initiative event last month, he said it was “just ridiculous” that a child dies every 15 seconds from water and sanitation related diseases. He also said that “latrines are a big issue with schools” and explained how adolescent girls stop going to school when there is not a latrine at their school. And how did the New York Times title the piece about this? “Matt Damon’s quest for clean African water.” And clean African latrines? Sigh. At the same event, a pledge was secured from Napo Pharmaceuticals for a $200 million programme to develop a low-cost drug to treat child diarrhoea. That’s great. But it’s still treating the effect and not the cause.