PEOPLE
areas, have this problem [of too few or unclean restrooms],” Lin said, leaving children forced to consider never using the bathrooms at school, an unhealthy practice. Lin devised a three-pronged approach to tackling China’s toilet crisis: building toilets to contemporary standards, maintaining them, and improving bathroom etiquette. Though it sounds simple, the “ Toilet issues are not petty matters but an important issue is multifaceted, with multiple stakeholders. aspect of improving infrastructure in urban and rural areas” —Chinese President Xi Jinping speaking to Lin ultimately turned to the China Global Philanthropy Institute, Xinhua news agency in November 2017 a leading nonprofit management and philanthropy training program in China, to help him drive his advocacy forward. The institute partners with the Ash Center to run the ELP training program, Each year, November 19 marks World Toilet and China Toilet and in March 2018, Lin journeyed to Cambridge for the three-week Revolution Awareness Day. Though washroom puns often executive education session. Led by Ash Center Director Tony Saich accompany headlines about China’s effort to improve the state and Edward Cunningham, director of the Center’s China Programs, of its public restrooms, the issue is no laughing matter in the ELP was created specifically to support leaders in China’s burgeoning eyes of the country’s leaders. President Xi’s “Toilet Revolution” philanthropic sector. The instruction blends skills-based sessions, announcement in 2015 was front-page news in the People’s Daily, case-based teaching, discussions with philanthropic leaders in the the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist US, and visits to foundations in Boston and DC. Party of China and a useful cipher for understanding Beijing’s Lin applied to the program hoping to strengthen his public leadership skills in service of the Toilet Revolution, but ultimately gained far more from the sessions. “I learned a keen awareness that if we want to solve these huge and complex social problems, we must focus on a specific goal to produce the greatest social value of our program,” said Lin. Lin leveraged this insight and new skills to launch a number of initiatives back in China, including a pilot program in Shenzhen that Lin Wei gives a presentation on his work to improve bathroom access in China to Executive Leaders in Philanthropy alumni and collected data on school toilets prospective students from different countries and led policy priorities. At the time of Xi’s announcement, China’s public to the development of the first school toilet standards in China. Now bathrooms were described as unhygienic, filthy, crude, anxietyLin is partnering with local governments and schools to raise funds inducing, and often in short supply. The condition of the country’s to overhaul bathrooms while ensuring that everyone, from principals bathrooms was both a mounting issue for China’s growing tourism to students, is educated on proper bathroom etiquette. industry as well as an ongoing public health crisis. “Lin has a passion for a critical aspect of the built environment— Lin Wei, a public welfare specialist from Shenzhen and graduate how does infrastructure reinforce implicit and explicit gender of the Ash Center’s Executive Leaders in Philanthropy (ELP) bias, and shape access to public goods and services?” remarked executive education program, cares deeply about public health and Cunningham. “Our ELP program seeks to inspire individuals in has made it his mission to tackle the issues of poor bathroom quality the social sector to ask such questions, and then equip them with and lack of facilities across China. He’s not abashed to talk about tools and frameworks to go about addressing these issues. Lin Wei what some deem an impolite topic. “Toilet issues are closely related embodies this combination of curiosity, conviction, and deployment to everyone,” he said. “The Chinese economy has developed over the of concepts such as stakeholder analysis and persuasion to change past few decades, but we lack these basic public services.” policy for the better.” In addition to the basic sanitation needs raised by China’s Lin is hopeful about the future of the Toilet Revolution. “If we toilet campaign, Lin is quick to note how problems with restrooms carry out work in building good toilets, managing them well, and disproportionately impact women and schoolchildren. With everyone respects the new public resources, we can gradually solve schoolchildren, Lin demonstrated that poor restroom facilities in some of these broader social problems,” he predicted. schools were having a detrimental effect on children’s welfare. “Many primary and secondary schools, not only in relatively undeveloped
China’s Toilet Revolution
26
Communiqué
Fall 2019
