Robin Cho is our new Head of Impact. After years of working in the field, bringing water and sanitation to some of the most remote, marginalised areas of the world, she’s settled into our team to lead us towards our mission – access to toilets and clean water for everyone in the world. 

Robin doesn’t love the spotlight, which is a shame because she’s hilarious, inspiring and has an unparalleled passion for WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene). But she’s come out of hiding for a quick chat in light of our most recent donation.

I’m sure people would assume you’re passionate about WASH because you’re our Head of Impact, but I don’t think people really get how much you’re truly in love with water, sanitation and hygiene.

Oh yeah. I’m obsessed. 

How did all that start? How did you get to be so hot for WASH?

To be honest, I kind of stumbled upon it. Earlier in my career, I was overseeing an education program in Latin America. I noticed that a lot of our students would just not show up to class. When I did a little digging, I realised it was because they were sick, mostly from waterborne diseases.

Later, I was working with a few different projects in Afghanistan – agriculture, gender empowerment, climate change, security. It became even more clear how the lack of water and sanitation really affect all of those things. At that point, I was convinced that access to WASH was foundational, the fundamental thing that unlocks opportunities for other solutions. Then I ended up spending a bunch of time doing WASH all around the world and fell in love.

I’m so jealous of all your experience working in the field and seeing firsthand the impact that access to WASH has on communities and individuals. Do you have any stories that you can share?

I have so many. I mean, I remember in Uganda, people told me how there were fewer arguments between couples after WASH interventions. I thought that was amazing. You know, when you don't have water, it’s usually the women and girls who travel really far to collect it. And they can only take to their families what they can carry on their backs. As you can imagine, it’s not enough for all of a household’s needs.

There would be disputes around how to use that water because the husband would want that to wash their clothes. They've been out in the field working all day, they want to use it for bathing. But when you only have 20 or 30 litres of water and a family of four and you need to cook, you need to wash dishes, you need to drink… it can be a recipe for a big argument. 

That’s something I hadn’t really thought about when working in WASH – the impact of family dynamics.

Then there is the impact that’s a bit more obvious. I think about girls and women and the role WASH has on their own self-dignity. I mean, imagine having to use the bathroom in the open. Especially when you’re on your period. There is so much stigma around menstruation already, and then not being able to have any privacy… it’s unfathomable to so many of us. Then there’s the danger of going to the bathroom outside – physical harassment, violence, snake bites, falling into wells…it’s terrible.

That’s really eye-opening. You know, we don’t often think about these layers of hardship beyond getting sick from contaminated water. Do you think that’s the biggest misconception about WASH?

No, I think the biggest misconception about WASH is that you just go somewhere, build a toilet, and then it's like, "Oh great, now someone has access to sanitation.”

Right, underground piping doesn’t pop up overnight.

Totally. You have to think about education, engagement, waste management, transportation… It involves an entire community of people, governments and businesses to get to a place in which people are accessing clean water and safe sanitation. It’s a heroic effort by so many people. And that includes the community themselves!

So when you think about designing our strategy to fulfil our mission, are those the factors that you consider?

As a business, we’re just as concerned about how work is done as we are in actually doing the work. Does that make sense? We don't want to provide clean water to 100 people and then find out that none of the community members were involved. We want the voices of the communities, including the most marginalised, leading our work. 

So that ideology, those values, plays a huge role in how we choose our partners.

Where do our customers fall in that romance?

They’re the ones who enable this work to get done. I just really want our customers to know they’re having a real impact. I want to dispel this idea that buying our toilet paper is not a big thing. Or that it’s not doing much. It's doing a huge thing. Being a part of a collective is what’s going to solve this crisis. No one person, organisation or business can do it alone.

So essentially you're saying teamwork makes the dream work?

Yeah, I guess I am.