Wish for WASH

Four years in the making and THE FIRST COPY IS FINALLY HERE 🎉📚

This week, Wish for WASH x held the first copy of LIL’ DEE OF PLANET ZEE during ’s 11th birthday week, and it feels like a full-circle moment. We believe conversations about do not have to wait until adolescence. Starting earlier, with age-appropriate language, helps normalize these topics and build confidence over time.

🚀 LIL’ DEE OF PLANET ZEE is a quirky, fun picture book for parents and caregivers to gently spark conversations about menstruation with young children (K–3), using imagination and humor, grounded in evidence-based science. Written by Laura Monahan and illustrated by Jing Wang Herman, the story invites kids into a warm, stigma-free learning moment on Planet Zee.

We are excited to begin seeing this story make its way into communities through an upcoming pilot, with the hope of reaching families through trusted healthcare and community settings.

Huge gratitude to our collaborators Megha, Priyal, Natalia, the team, and Shreyas for the vision behind this work!

👉🏾 Pre-order LIL’ DEE OF PLANET ZEE: https://lnkd.in/gazRcJnZ ( )

Curious on how to support us in this children’s education and project? DM us ✨

🎉 Happiest 11th birthday to us at ! 🎉

WHAT A RIDE YALL! Taking a moment to celebrate this milestone gave us the chance to pause, reconnect, and gather with some of our –based team members who have always been so critical in shaping our journey. Being together reminded us just how much creativity, curiosity, and collective joy have powered Wish for WASH forward over the years. 💫

That energy continues to fuel our newly iterated mission. We aim to empower changemakers with the skills and mindsets to collaboratively design sustainable solutions to global challenges in water, sanitation, and hygiene and beyond. Every workshop, partnership, and prototype reflects our belief that transformative ideas grow best in community.

Building on that momentum, we are proud to keep evolving as a THINK and DO tank for the hashtag by way of hashtag (or Sustainable Development Goal 6), expanding on our products, programs, and pipelines that seek to make water, sanitation and hygiene (or hashtag ) innovation more inclusive, vibrant, and accessible for emerging leaders. 👏🏾

As we look ahead, we’re inviting our community to help us raise another $11,000 (taking us to nearly ~$30K raised) to grow our Wish for WASH Thinks Innovation Lab through our ongoing campaign. This support will help us spark new creativity, strengthen leadership development opportunities, and create more room for bold experimentation across under-researched parts of the hashtag ecosystem. ✨

CHEERS to another chapter filled with imagination and collaboration in community with some of the best because hashtag and hashtag 🚽💙

[If you’re interested in supporting our work, donate here today 👉🏾 https://lnkd.in/eiuYierc]

*And peep our continued celebratory hashtag hashtag from Who Gives A Crap 🧻

Innovation begins with empathy and ends with impact. 💙🌍✨

Nearly 11 years ago, started with a simple question from a group of students who believed design could change the way the world approaches toilets and periods. That small spark grew into a global community of changemakers using human-centered design to reimagine water, sanitation, and hygiene for everyone.

Today, our mission remains the same. We aim to empower changemakers with the skills and mindsets to collaboratively design sustainable WASH solutions that honor dignity, creativity, and community voice.

As we celebrate and our 11th Birthday on December 9, we are rallying our community to help raise $11K to grow our Wish for WASH Thinks Innovation Lab. This support means more expert mentors, more creative space, more materials, and more opportunities for the innovators dreaming up a more equitable WASH futures.

If Wish for WASH has ever inspired you, taught you something new, or made you smile because and , we would be grateful if you could donate or share.

👉🏾 Donate or share here: donorbox.org/celebrating-10-years-of-wish-for-wash-1 (or via the link in our bio)

THANK YOU for believing in the power of empathy-driven design and bold ideas for toilets, periods, and beyond. 🚽✨🎈

A Wearable In-Pad Diagnostic for the Detection of Disease Biomarkers in Menstruation Blood "The pain-free monitoring of blood-based biomarkers is essential for early detection of diseases like cancers, infections, and metabolic disorders such as diabetes" https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202505170

PARTNERSHIP IN PRACTICE: WHAT WE LEARNED FROM THE USAID–LIXIL COLLABORATION "As we reflect on the evolution of the Partnership for Better Living (PBL), a five-year program launched by LIXIL and USAID to enhance access to improved sanitation and hygiene solutions, we are proud of the tangible progress we made reaching new markets in addition to the many lessons learned for future public-private partnerships (PPPs)" https://sato.lixil.com/the-partnership-for-better-living-improves-the-lives-of-3-6-million-people/

Partnership in Practice: What We Learned from the USAID–LIXIL Collaboration - SATO - A better life. Every day. Learn more about our solutions, which can be bundled together for the humanitarian sector and refugee sanitation.

DAWN TO DUSK "Join us and journey alongside individuals whose lives intersect with SATO in unique and meaningful ways" https://online.fliphtml5.com/dctzx/qxyd/ =3

Dawn to Dusk - final Every morning, as the world wakes for another day, billions of sanitation and hygiene stories are written – from the mother collecting water for hygiene at home to the toilet sales agent making an income by selling SATO products in his village. Shining a light on eleven individuals from Africa and...

My “Gateway” to Advancing Menstrual Health Through Research and Education "As a public health student, much of my time has been spent immersed in research. I love research, but this summer, I had a unique opportunity to step beyond that to co-lead a workshop for adolescent peer educators learning to teach their peers about puberty"
https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/news/my-gateway-advancing-menstrual-health-through-research-education

My “Gateway” to Advancing Menstrual Health Through Research and Education MPH student Bhavana Huliyar writes about her time as a Sid Lerner Women’s and Adolescent Health Fellow with the Gender, Adolescent Transitions and Environment (GATE) Program.

EUROPE AND CENTRAL ASIA: TO FEED THE POPULATION, SUSTAINABLE WATER MANAGEMENT IS ESSENTIAL, UN REPORT SAYS
"If the people of Europe and Central Asia are to have food on their plates, they must have water security" https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/to-feed-the-population-sustainable-water-management-is-essential/en

Europe and Central Asia: To feed the population, sustainable water management is essential, UN report says From FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia

PREDICTING DETERMINANTS OF UNIMPROVED WATER SUPPLY IN ETHIOPIA USING MACHINE LEARNING ANALYSIS OF EDHS-2019 DATA "This study aimed to provide more accurate predictions and data-driven insights that can inform policy-making, resource allocation, and interventions to address Ethiopia’s water crisis" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-96412-w

Predicting determinants of unimproved water supply in Ethiopia using machine learning analysis of EDHS-2019 data - Scientific Reports Over 2 billion people worldwide are impacted by the global dilemma of access to clean and safe drinking water. The problem is most acute in low-income nations, where many people still use unimproved water sources such as exposed wells and surface water. Public health systems are heavily burdene...

UTAH BANS FLUORIDE IN PUBLIC DRINKING WATER, A FIRST IN THE US "Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, pushing past opposition from dentists and national health organizations who warn the move will lead to medical problems that disproportionately affect low-income communities" https://apnews.com/article/utah-fluoride-ban-43f67153beb3e06ada9d782655fb15de

Utah bans fluoride in public drinking water, a first in the US Utah has become the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water, despite widespread opposition from dentists and national health organizations. Republican Gov.

THE MENSTRUAL CYCLE AND COGNITION: WHAT THE SCIENCE REALLY SAYS
"A meta-analysis reveals that cognitive function remains consistent across the menstrual cycle" https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/the-menstrual-cycle-and-cognition-what-the-science-really-says-397772

The Menstrual Cycle and Cognition: What the Science Really Says A meta-analysis of 102 studies and 3,943 participants found no significant cognitive differences across menstrual phases. Despite hormonal changes during the cycle, cognitive abilities such as memory and attention remained consistent.