Giant poo banned from UN media centre

In a stunt worthy of the glory days of the Liberal Assembly, someone from Water Aid has been attempting to attend events around the MDG Summit dressed as a giant poo.

Sadly, not everyone thinks this is a good idea. The costume was banned from the Stand Up rally at Lincoln Plaza. Now it has been banned from the UN Week Digital Media Lounge.

A victory for taste and decency, you may say. But this stunt was designed to publicise a terrible problem. Kate Norgrove from WaterAid says:

"A giant poo may seem like an odd way to get a serious message across but sanitation is still such a taboo subject that getting attention for the issue calls for eyecatching measures. Let’s not forget that this is an issue that results in 4000 children dying every single day in the developing world...

"If sanitation continues to be ignored, this will have huge consequences for the health of the world’s poorest people. Governments have a moral duty to deliver on the Millennium promises they made to ‘free the entire human race from want’. This simply won’t happen if one of the main underlying causes of child mortality is overlooked."

More from WaterAid on their website.