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16 November 2012

10,000th toilet twinned


With World Toilet Day approaching, one Christian photographer managed to take a picture of the 10,000th toilet to be twinned.

Simon Henderson, a photographer from Cornwall, joined the many churches, schools, scout troops, construction companies and other groups, to have twinned their toilets, just before World Toilet Day on the 19 November.

When they twinned their toilet his family received a photo of the new toilet and its GPS coordinates, so they can pin point it using Google maps,

Toilets can be twinned with ones in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh or Cambodia.

Having learnt about Toilet Twinning at the New Wine festival in Shepton Mallet, Simon explained: "It's a bit different from other charities because you pay a one-off £60 to twin your toilet and that supports water and sanitation projects overseas."

The £60 from people like Simon goes to the charities Cord and Alliance member Tearfund who use it to improve people's access to clean water and safe sanitation, and promote hygiene in some of the world's poorest countries.

Poor hygiene and sanitation causes 60 per cent of all rural diseases, every 20 seconds a child dies from diarrhoeal diseases and 433 million school days are lost each year because of water-borne disease.

For every £1 that is spent on water and sanitation, there is an £8 return because of the time saved, the increased productivity and reduced health costs.

Lorraine Kingsley, the general manager of Toilet Twinning, said: "We are thrilled that Christians like Simon, along with many churches and church groups, have been inspired by the Toilet Twinning idea since its beginning in 2009.

"Their generous support enables us to help some of the 2.6 billion people worldwide without access to a decent loo."