Falls Church resident Cece Jones-Davis and Women & Girls Working Group will be joining Plan International on Wednesday, Nov. 19, to build toilets for school girls in Ethiopia as part of World Toilet Day.
Jones-Davis started Women & Girls Working Group to raise awareness and funds for issues that impact women and girls in impoverished regions of the world.
World Toilet Day was created to raise awareness about the 2.5 million people around the world who do not have access to toilets
Jones-Davis said that this creates a major sanitation problem for those who do not have access to access to toilets and hinders the education of adolescent and preadolescent girls. She said that only 55 percent of Ethiopian girls finish primary school, with lack of access to modern bathrooms being one of the barriers to completing school.
A lack of access to private facilities, Jones-Davis said, can create awkward and embarrassing situations for the young women, especially during the first few years of menstruation.
“Our group wants to help them stay in school by providing bathrooms for them,” she said. “We believe everyone, even impoverished girls, have a right to an education and human dignity.”
