IDE News

October 18, 2010

IDE Canada's Easy Latrine Program Creates Wealth and Contains Disease

Press Release

IDE Cambodia's Sanitation Program Manager, Marketing Specialist Tamara Baker

(Winnipeg, Manitoba - October 18, 2010) -- This week at IDE Canada's annual Fall Banquet, Winnipeg will welcome home two of our own - Cordell Jacks and Tamara Baker - and celebrate their ongoing success with IDE Cambodia.

Jacks and Baker co-manage IDE Cambodia's innovative Easy Latrine program. Together they lead IDE's social marketing efforts in Cambodia, and have been instrumental in developing and introducing affordable, simply designed latrines to villages in rural Cambodia - a part of the world where poor sanitation kills more people than HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.

The Easy Latrine - the result of a collaboration between IDE and Jeff Chapin, a designer on sabbatical from leading design firm IDEO - costs only $25, is fabricated locally in the rural areas where it is needed, and can be installed in a single day. The design was recently honoured with a Best in Show award at the prestigious IDEA International Design Excellence Awards for its integration of product design, social strategy, and sustainability.

"We are excited to have Cordell Jacks and Tamara Baker speak at our upcoming banquet, and give Manitoba a chance to hear more about IDE's work in Cambodia," said Ron Enns, IDE Canada's Executive Director. "As an organization, we are dedicated to these types of projects that allow us to partner with local entrepreneurs and set up networks that produce and, distribute, our technologies locally."

Enns continued, "This model creates jobs and generates wealth in local economies, where it is so desperately needed. This is key to helping people escape poverty for good and central to our belief that the world's poorest people are producers of value, not objects of charity. We are truly helping to unleash the potential of the rural poor."

IDE Canada's Fall Banquet is happening on Friday, October 22 at the Fort Garry Hotel. Tickets are still available by calling 204.786.1490