#21 'tackling poverty' David Crosweller founder of Sanitation First

<p>David Crosweller joins Purposely Podcast to share his founder story</p> <p>Sanitation First provide ecosan toilets to people in India and Africa. Incredibly they have helped to transform the lives of 350,000 people since their launch in 1997. &nbsp;Their slogan is to ‘tackle poverty one toilet at a time’.</p> <p>David had been running a marketing agency in the UK which collapsed in the 1990 economic crash. &nbsp;This led him to re-focus his career deciding to help others and live a life of purpose. David started Sanitation First with his friend Andy Barr after a life changing visit to Africa where he saw the devastating effects of disease-ridden water and lack of proper sanitation. David talks about crying for an hour in a hotel room following a visit to a hospital where a third of patients had died from diseases directly related to dirty water. They started to construct eco-toilets in a country that had no toilets for millions of people.</p> <p>In 2005 they developed the first composting toilet which was built in an Indian school, a unit that is still in use to this day. This school, like so many others, now has long-term sustainable sanitation and the impact, especially for girls, is enormous. There has been a 17.5% increase in the number of girls enrolling with almost 100% finishing senior school and approximately half going on to further education. A toilet has a big impact.</p> --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/mark-longbottom2/message