Slideshow

1 of 2

David Kuria.

Consisting of games such as chess, checkers and darts, the competitions are called "toilet tournaments" because of their location in two identical bathroom facilities. Beginning June 17, the tournaments are expected to draw at least 100 children to each location, a number that five additional locations are also expected to draw after their finished construction.

The tournaments are put on by Ecotact, a company founded by Kenyan architect David Kuria. Kuria quit his lucrative job building toilets when he realized that none of his work with sanitation was reaching those who were most in need. Now, he works through Ecotact to build facilities called “toilet malls" as an affordable solution for the sanitation needs of slum families. Since its beginning in 2006, Ecotact has finished 16 such malls and is in the process of building 24 more. The square, beige and white facilities are often mistaken for restaurants but instead provide showers, refreshments, snacks, hygienic services and sanitation classes. Soon, the malls will also provide a safe place for the slums' youth to hang out at night.

Kuria planned his malls to target specific cultural barriers to sanitation, the largest of which is its lack of value in the eyes of the African people. Ecotact's collaboration with the popular beauty company Miss Earth has helped to illustrate that sanitation is both necessary and attractive. Through confronting these types of barriers, Kuria said that he has seen a major transformation in the sanitation level of lower-income areas.

"It’s hard to get people to use toilets," said Janie Hayes, communications and advocacy officer at a water advocacy organization called PATH. "(David Kuria's) idea is that the toilets will be income generating and create the sense that using latrines and managing waste is not taboo and really acceptable to everyone."

Water advocacy groups directly link the contamination of slum water to the Kenyan government’s failure to keep up with raw sewage generated by a culture that defecates in the streets. Kuria also said that the government's sanitation budget is lowest in the slums, where the rate of urban growth, and thus the need for funding, is increasing most rapidly.

"People in the slums migrated from rural areas and it's very congested," Kuria said. "There is no basic provision of water and sanitation and the people are left without any option."

The ramifications of unsafe water sources include typhoid, cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, waterborne diseases, the intake of toxic substances and heavy metal poisoning. These waterborne diseases continue to spread because victims do not understand the value of water treatment and have not made the connection between dirty water and sickness. Locals continue to drink utility water, though it is typically contaminated by the very pipes it travels through. They also fail to understand the dangers of vended water, which has rarely been given proper treatment. Kuria seeks to combat this issue both through using ultraviolet treatment to clean his water and by having classes to teach basic sanitation and hygiene.

"There is an issue of awareness," Kuria said. "People are dying from typhoid but the relationship between death, sickness and sanitation is not clear in their minds."