St Andrew's has recently twinned one of our toilets with a latrine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Intrigued? Read on to find out all about this initiative.
Bedford Park Rotary Club are involved in a project with a charity called Toilet Twinning aiming to make Bedford a Toilet Twinned Town.
We take it for granted that we have immediate access to clean water for bathing, toileting etc and that drinking the water, won’t make us ill. This isn’t the case in many 3rd world countries, where sanitation isn’t “a given” and their water is unsafe.
Some eye-watering statistics are:
· According to World Health Organisation & UNICEF - 1.7 billion people don’t have somewhere safe to go to the toilet
· Also, they say Today 1 in 4 people around the world lack safe drinking water
· Every day worldwide, over 700 children under 5 die from diarrhoea linked to unsafe water, sanitation, and poor health
· The United Nations advise the shocking statistic that children worldwide miss 443 million school days each year because of dirty water and poor sanitation
· And the World Bank comment that every year women and girls spend 97 billion hours finding a safe place to go to the toilet
· The lack of a toilet makes women and girls a target for sexual attacks as they go to the toilet in the open, late at night
Bedford Park Rotary Club have made Toilet Twinning and raising awareness about these sanitation challenges one of its projects. Toilet Twinning is a charity, working with non-government organisations, like the Tear Fund, who are providing education, guidance, and support “on the ground” in 3rd world countries, advising on the location and building of sustainable toilets and blocks of toilets.
The project, making Bedford a “Toilet Twinned Town” is supported by our Mayor Dave Hodgson and identified 20 organisations and businesses across Bedford to be recipients of a Toilet Twinning plaque evidencing their toilet has been twinned with a toilet in a 3rd world country.
£60.00 is the cost of twinning a single toilet (or £240.00 for a toilet block), so £1,200.00 was raised by Bedford Park Rotary Club to “twin” the toilets in the 20 organisations with 20 toilets in 3rd world countries.
If you would like to find out more about this subject, you can visit toilettwinning.org