{"id":1632,"date":"2015-10-16T11:19:07","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T11:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/carleton.ca\/communityfirst\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2016-01-15T13:43:12","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T18:43:12","slug":"gottago-making-progress-in-ottawa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/communityfirst\/2015\/gottago-making-progress-in-ottawa\/","title":{"rendered":"GottaGo! making progress in Ottawa"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amy Richardson, CFICE Communications RA<\/em><\/p>\n

Ottawa is getting a little closer to relief.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve won some very important victories in terms of toilets at Bayview and Hurdman,\u201d says Joan Kuyek, chair of Ottawa\u2019s GottaGo! Campaign.<\/a><\/p>\n

GottaGo!, an advocacy group campaigning for a network of public toilets in Ottawa, has lobbied to the city to implement public toilets in the plans of two LRT stations.<\/p>\n

The group made its official launch two years ago on November 19th,<\/sup>, coincidentally also World Toilet Day. Ever since, the group has been working hard to create awareness and get support to make accessible public toilets in Ottawa a reality.<\/p>\n

With the help of Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE), a SSHRC-funded research project aimed at strengthening Canadian communities, GottaGo! brought forward a motion to include public washrooms in phase two of the LRT plan.<\/p>\n

CFICE funded two Carleton University undergraduate students to help with the campaign \u2013 Rachel Canham and Sarah Good.<\/p>\n

Canham, a 2nd<\/sup> year environmental studies and physical geography student at the time, created a report<\/a>\u00a0entitled \u201cTalking Toilets: Assessing the accessibility of public toilet provision in Ottawa, Ontario.\u201d The report highlighted how public toilets impact the lives of all Ottawans, especially those most vulnerable. It was presented to council to spur discussion about the lack of Ottawa\u2019s public toilets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to use (the report) for our big press conference last September. It really had a lot of impact,\u201d says Kuyek.<\/p>\n

\"Photo

Joan Kuyek, left, and Rachel Canham, right, at the GottaGo! press release in September 2014 unveiling Canham’s report. Photo credit: Patricia Ballamingie.<\/p><\/div>\n

Canham reflects on her experiences with the campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the key issues and questions I asked participants was about the new LRT system not having any public bathrooms. At the time, there were no plans to build any public bathrooms. That got a lot of attention and it ended up being one of the main focuses of my report,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really good thing to incorporate students into the community action. It was really an eye opening experience for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Canham\u2019s interview participants for the report included disabled people, mothers with children, people with irritable bowel syndrome and homeless people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke to a number of homeless people and there were a lot of stories that they weren\u2019t able to enter public bathrooms because they were shunned, which draws attention to the fact that there aren\u2019t true public bathrooms that are available to everyone in the City of Ottawa,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

While Canham focused on how future toilets would improve the lives of Ottawa citizens, Good focused on the existing public toilets in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

Good, a 4th<\/sup> year geography and geomatics student at the time, mapped all the GPS coordinates for the city\u2019s municipally funded toilets. Her findings showed a gap between public toilets locations in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to identify some places where there were visible gaps, in particular Centretown especially near MacDonald Park. (This) was one of the areas (GottaGo! was) pushing to get a public washroom installed because there was a lack of any kind of public washroom around there,\u201d Good says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the mapping helped the campaign because it put a good visual to where the gaps really lie. The map shows where the gaps are and it kind of forces the city to do something with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A

A map of current public toilets in Ottawa that Sarah Good helped create. Source: GottaGo!<\/p><\/div>\n

Kuyek says the contribution from the CFICE students was instrumental for their campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to go to the City Information Technology Committee with (Good\u2019s) information and persuade them we need more toilets,\u201d she says. \u201cBoth (Canham and Good) had a huge impact on the campaign in terms of what we were trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bessa Whitmore, member of the core GottaGo! team and professor emerita at Carleton University\u2019s School of Social Work, agrees with Kuyek.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really appreciate the support that we\u2019re getting from students from CFICE and other students. This is free work for us, but we wouldn\u2019t be able to do what we\u2019ve done without those students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patricia Ballamingie, academic co-lead of CFICE\u2019s Community Environmental Sustainability Hub, says the benefit went both ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunity for these students to conduct applied research, to help those most vulnerable access public space, anchors academic concepts like the right to the city,\u201d Ballamingie says. \u201cWe cannot talk about sustainable community without also considering social justice, and Rachel and Sarah understand this in a meaningful way.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Canham\u2019s report, the GottaGo! team presented their motion to implement toilets in the LRT stations to council early July for a vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo our delight and surprise, it was unanimous,\u201d Whitmore says.<\/p>\n

Canham was also surprised.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s what the people wanted and there was actual change. It\u2019s really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ottawa city staff working on the LRT phase two plan were instructed to include public toilets in the designs for Bayview and Hurdman stations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be watching very closely to make sure that they actually follow up,\u201d Whitmore says.<\/p>\n

GottaGo! hopes to partner with the city on developing a \u201cwhere to go\u201d app that would show users the locations of Ottawa\u2019s public toilets, their hours of operation and whether or not they\u2019re accessible.<\/p>\n

Kuyek thinks the app will help show the city there aren\u2019t enough toilets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think (the app) will enable us to find out which toilets are actually open and accessible. The city seems to think that when they get the app up, they\u2019ll discover that we won\u2019t need very many toilets because there would be so many,\u201d Kuyek says. \u201cWe actually think the opposite is true.\u201d<\/p>\n

A group of Master of Social Work students from Carleton University will be conducting a \u201cground truthing\u201d of the public toilets this winter. They will be looking for accessibility, hours of operation and if the toilet is actually open in the winter. Whitmore expects many of them will only be open during programming hours in the summer and not operational in the winter.<\/p>\n

Kuyek plans to gain more support with World Toilet Day events on November 14th<\/sup>. GottaGo! will be having a rain or shine gathering from 12-2pm at Dundonald Park in Centretown. The public is welcome to attend for an afternoon of entertainment and dancing.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Amy Richardson, CFICE Communications RA Ottawa is getting a little closer to relief. \u201cWe\u2019ve won some very important victories in terms of toilets at Bayview and Hurdman,\u201d says Joan Kuyek, chair of Ottawa\u2019s GottaGo! Campaign. GottaGo!, an advocacy group campaigning for a network of public toilets in Ottawa, has lobbied to the city to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[89,1],"tags":[381,382,383,384,385],"yoast_head":"\nGottaGo! making progress in Ottawa - Community First<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Amy Richardson, CFICE Communications RA Ottawa is getting a little closer to relief. \u201cWe\u2019ve won some very important victories in terms of toilets at\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/communityfirst\/2015\/gottago-making-progress-in-ottawa\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jay Gatsby\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/communityfirst\/2015\/gottago-making-progress-in-ottawa\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/communityfirst\/2015\/gottago-making-progress-in-ottawa\/\",\"name\":\"GottaGo! 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