On the final day of his visit to Kenya, Pope Francis visited Kangemi slum in Nairobi where he called for access to basic but vital services, especially water and sanitation.

He told his audience: "Access to safe drinkable water is a basic and universal human right, since it is essential to human survival.... To deny a family water, under any bureaucratic pretext whatsoever, is a great injustice, especially when one profits from this need." 

​People needed access to infrastructures and basic services, he said: "By this I mean toilets, sewers, drains, refuse collection, electricity, roads, as well as schools, hospitals, recreational and sport centres, studios and workshops for artists and craftsmen." 

He ended his address: "Dear neighbours, dear brothers and sisters, let us together pray, work and commit ourselves to ensuring that every family has dignified housing, access to drinking water, a toilet, reliable sources of energy for lighting, cooking and improving their homes; that every neighbourhood has streets, squares, schools, hospitals, areas for sport, recreation and art; that basic services are provided to each of you; that your appeals and your pleas for greater opportunity can be heard; that all can enjoy the peace and security which they rightfully deserve on the basis of their infinite human dignity." 

​Read the full text of his address here. (Photograph courtesy of CAFOD.)

How do you break down cultural barriers around toilets? Get children talking, according to this excellent article in The Guardian newspaper. Teaching children to talk about hygiene openly is the first step to tackling the harmful prejudices of their parents.

​That's because kids are less hung up on these issues than adults, says Thilo Panzerbieter, the executive director of the German Toilet Organisation (GTO) and one of several people quoted. He said the GTO's work in Zambia, Lesotho and the Philippines had revealed a universally applicable strategy: “Let’s empower the children, because they don’t have that taboo.” Read the full article here.

We loved this story from UNICEF Philippines about how a musical comedy about a fly and a dump of human poo is using humour to get messages about safe sanitation and good hygiene across to children in the Philippines.

As 12-year-old Ronel Gungob told UNICEF Philippines, "we laughed so hard at the actor who tripped on a pretend pile of faeces." When he got home, Ronel couldn't stop talking about the play to his family.

This brilliant, creative project has been underway since June 2014 in the province of Masbate and is aimed at encouraging parents and community leaders to improve basic sanitation. Read the full story here.

One in three people around the world lack safe sanitation. Of the world's seven billion people, 2.4 billion do not use a basic toilet and almost 1 billion still defecate in the open.

This is why the United Nations General Assembly in 2013 designated 19 November as World Toilet Day and UN Water is calling on people to help raise awareness of the issue with the hashtag #wecantwait. Without good sanitation, people are at risk of disease and malnutrition. Women and girls suffer disproportionate impacts due to the lack of toilets at schools, the home or the workplace.

We can’t wait to change this situation. We must speak up and end the global sanitation crisis. It is time to end this deadly crisis and to ensure everyone, everywhere has access to a clean, safe toilet.

We were really delighted to see this article published by the US newspaper, National Catholic Reporter, on faith groups coming together in Kenya to raise the alarm for environmental protection. Because so many of our friends were featured in the article.

We helped this annual interfaith environmental gathering get off the ground when we were part of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation – and it was out of that work that Faith in Water was born. 

It was great to see faith groups inspiring each other on the environment. As Mary Francis Wangare, a Franciscan Sister who is director of the Office of Justice, Peace & Integrity of Creation Franciscan Africa, explained, the environment is a neutral subject.

"Everyone knows we must take action, so it is the perfect rallying point for interfaith work. We are from all different faiths, but we want to show that if we work together, we can stop the radicalization of young people,” she told more than 600 participants at Catholic University in Nairobi on Oct. 9 as she opened the two-day conference.

We were warned it could take months... Some people even suggested we should use professional agents to help us. But instead we read all the guidance several times and drafted our constitution with extreme care. 

And our hard work paid off. This week – far quicker than we'd expected – the UK's Charity Commission came back to us. They said we'd met all their conditions and are now officially registered as a charity. Hurray! We are all hugely  excited and energised about moving on to the next step.