2. On our website, and on a DVD that comes with our church resource – Bawili’s powerful story of courage and dignity is called “Toilets: Safety for women.” If you show the film during your service, you will probably want to skip slides 3-8 and start your talk from slide 9 onwards.
‘As a widow, I didn’t have the strength to build a toilet. I am so thankful for my loving community.’
Bawili, Democratic Republic of Congo

3. Today, 526 million women will have no choice but to go to the toilet out in the open.
By the end of the year, women and girls will have spent 97 billion hours finding a place to go.
For all too many women, the lack of a proper loo means they are forced to relieve themselves in the open and risk being attacked. Many have to wait till dark to venture out.
Toilets mean everything. They bring safety and dignity. They mean women are no longer living in fear and shame.

4. Bawili A widow Not enough money for toilet materials
Not enough strength to dig a pit
Bawili’s husband was killed during the civil war – leaving her to raise her family all alone. Along with thousands of people from DRC, she fled to Tanzania where she lived for years as a refugee.

5. Mwandiga Trois
A post-war community of people returning from being refugees
No clean water and no toilets
Shame and danger for women
When the government declared it was safe for those taking refuge in Tanzania to return to DRC, they repatriated many families, including Bawili’s, to Mwandiga Trois. Life was very hard. Basic facilities like clean water and toilets were non-existent. The families had to start over, with nothing, and build their community from the ground up.

6. Tearfund’s Community Health Club
Meets under a tree weekly
Bawili and her neighbours have learnt about sanitation
They’ve written a song about toilets!
Toilet Twinning is part of Tearfund. Everything changed for Bawili and her neighbours when Tearfund encouraged the community to come together and form a Community Health Club. The club members wrote a song about every home having a toilet, a bathroom area and a rubbish pit – to protect their health. The lyrics also emphasised the importance of hand washing. The club members sing this song at every meeting – and they have taught this song to their children. As the Toilet Twinning team discovered - if you hum the opening few notes of the tune as you walk around the village, any children gathered around you will spontaneously break into singing the whole song!

7. The club learnt to work together They help the most needy among them
Bawili and her neighbours learnt about sanitation – but, more importantly, they learnt how to work together – and they learnt that God works through them. They decided to vote for the members among them who most needed their help in building a toilet……

8. Bawili’s club is called Na Sohakelwa, which means ‘I’m happy’
Bawili now has a toilet!
Bawili’s club is called Na Sohakelwa, which means ‘I’m happy’
…. When the club voted to help Bawili build a toilet, they demonstrated that love changes everything.

9. ‘The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart
‘The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving.’
Psalm 28:7 (New Living Translation)
Harvest is a good time to Give Thanks for God’s provision for us.

10. Bawili is so thankful. She says:
‘As a widow, I didn’t have the strength to build a toilet. I am so thankful for my loving community.’

11. What lens do we look at life through?
Greed or gratitude?
Fear or God’s favour?

12. When we approach God with gratitude, we draw close to him
(Psalm 100:4).
Gratitude opens our eyes to see that he loves us and gave his life for us
(John 3:16; 1 Chronicles 16:34).

13. When we look at the world through eyes of gratitude, we take our eyes off our problems and fix them onto God: the author and finisher of our faith
(1 Thessalonians 5:18).
He blesses us to be a blessing to others: all we do for others is out of gratitude for what he has done for us
(Colossians 3:17).
God calls us to be grateful – in all circumstances – because it throws our focus away from ourselves and fixes our vision on him.

14. Food for thought:
One in three people in the world still don’t have a safe and hygienic loo.
One billion people are still forced to relieve themselves out in the open.
In our society, it’s hard to remain in an attitude of gratitude. It’s hard to remember that everything we have comes from God. It’s easy to think that the money we earn is ours, not God’s gift to us. But when we stop comparing ourselves to those who have more than us, and compare ourselves to those who have less – a lot less – we discover just how much we have to give thanks for.

15. ‘The best thing about having our own toilet is the privacy
‘The best thing about having our own toilet is the privacy. We know now that we can’t be seen by boys or men as we go to the toilet.’
Zaina