Holy Cross Twins Toilets to Help Flush Away Poverty

Tuesday 11th September 2018

Students at Holy Cross are flushed with success after raising £1,500 for Toilet Twinning. They have twinned 25 of their loos with latrines overseas, in countries such as Afghanistan, South Sudan and Guatemala.

Their enthusiastic fundraising started at the start of the last academic year and included cake sales, raffles, toilet themed quizzes and a ‘spend a penny’ wall of pennies.  It will enable Toilet Twinning, a partnership between development agencies Cord and Tearfund, to help some of the 2.5 billion people worldwide who lack decent sanitation.

Head of RE Rebecca Hyndman said she was full of admiration for the students’ maturity in understanding the challenges faced by children overseas, living without access to a toilet.   ‘Students had RE lessons which raised awareness of the impact that poor toilet provision can have on people such as the fact that girls approaching puberty will often stop going to school if there is no privacy in the toilets,’ she said.  ‘It’s such a crucial part of our Catholic mission and ethos that tackle social injustice across the world and help those most in need; the students really responded to the call to put faith into action.’

Toilet Twinning CEO Lorraine Kingsley recognises the appeal of the charity to schools: ‘Even quite young children understand toilets, and educational links can be made to health, water supply, poverty and development.  We’ve got some great resources to help schools fundraise, including an assembly plan, and the school gets a framed certificate and photograph of each twinned latrine to remind them of all their hard work.’

To find out more about Toilet Twinning or to twin your own loo, visit www.toilettwinning.org