On International Women’s Day (8 March 2022), Soroptimist International of Harrogate and District have launched a campaign to obtain Toilet Twinning Status for the Harrogate District.
Toilet twinning is about helping to solve the problem of having access to a toilet. In many countries, people are forced to walk into the bush area, putting themselves at risk.
- The idea of Toilet Twinning is to display a certificate of a latrine, with its GPS coordinates, in a toilet to show that it’s twinned. Some months, The pictures often lead to further donations from people who say they’ve seen a certificate.
- For Harrogate to become a toilet twinned town it must have a minium number of twinned toilets, and over homes, business, organisations and public toilets.
Soroptimist International was formed in 1921 and has a long history of supporting women and girls.
Vall Hills, SI Harrogate and District President said:
We want to ensure that young women and girls have access to education, are empowered and enabled to reach their full potential.
Locally, we are already supporting Dementia Forward and our local foodbank (Resurrected Bites).
We have chosen the Harrogate toilet twinning project as our international project, as nearly 25% of the world population don’t have access to a toilet or clean water. Having to use the wilderness puts young girls at jeopardy, not only from wild animals, but also at fear of sexual assault or even murder.
Not having toilets at school means that some girls stay away from school when they start having periods.
We hope that this project will raise awareness of an issue that affects a quarter of mankind, and we hope that many people get involved.
There was a launch event that was supported by the Mayors of Harrogate and Pateley Bridge, along with the chairman of North Yorkshire County Council.
They are now looking for individuals, churches, businesses, organisations and public toilets to become twinned.
It costs a donation of £60 to twin a toilet.
