Two University of Manitoba Asper School of Business graduates are the innovators behind the most successful approach to sanitation in Cambodia, an approach now sought to be replicated globally.

Cordell Jacks and Tamara Baker, grads of 2003 and 2006 respectively, will be in Canada from October 18-23, speaking to audiences in Toronto and Winnipeg about social change. In Winnipeg they are the keynote speakers at IDE (International Development Enterprises) Canada’s annual fall banquet on Oct. 22, and they will also speak to Asper students on Oct. 19 at 11:30 a.m

The “Latrine King and Queen of Cambodia” were hired by IDE Cambodia to create a sustainable solution to the most lagging United Nation’s Millennium Development Goal: get the 2.5 billion people who currently lack access to sanitation to access it and adopt it.

Funded by USAID and the World Bank, they began their project in October 2009 by developing the Easy Latrine, an award-winning toilet. By using this toilet and market forces they increased latrines in one region of Cambodia alone by 36 per cent, more than any other NGO or charity has done before. This is a huge breakthrough in a country where more people own cellular phones than toilets. What is more, Jacks and Baker created a market that people didn’t think existed and now sanitation related revenues in their project’s regions of Cambodia have increased 800 per cent, stimulating job growth as local entrepreneurs expand their businesses to service this new demand.

Without a toilet people defecate in fields where fecal pathogens ruin water sources and cause widespread illness – uncontained fecal waste ultimately leads to 10,000 children dying annually of diarrhea in Cambodia.

For more information contact Sean Moore, public affairs, University of Manitoba, 204-474-7963 (sean_moore@umanitoba.ca).