A leading North Yorkshire bathroom company has joined forces with charity Toilet Twinning to help provide toilet facilities in some of the poorest countries in the world.
The online bathroom retailer, UK Bathrooms, which is based in Ripon, has committed to ’twinning’ ten toilets a month to support poor communities abroad. Its support will fund the building of household toilets, as well as helping to provide clean water and hygiene education in often remote and hard-to-reach communities.
Graeme Borchard, Director of UK Bathrooms, said:
It’s heart-breaking to know that globally nearly 1,000 children die from preventable diseases related to dirty water and unsafe toilets every day. UK Bathrooms believes that we have a social responsibility to make the world a better place.
In fact, 2.3 billion people – or one in three people on the planet – still lack a safe, clean toilet. It’s estimated that almost 892 million people worldwide still have to squat in the open.
UK Bathrooms has been established for more than 20 years, making it one of the UK’s biggest and longest-running online bathroom retailers. It has supplied more than 30,000 properties, including such notable addresses as The Old Bailey, Leicester Square Odeon, Lord’s Cricket Ground and The House of Commons.
Toilet Twinning, a charity initiative established in 2010, invites people to ‘twin’ their toilets at home or work with a latrine overseas – and so sponsor a toilet for a poor family abroad. For a £60 donation, you receive a certificate showing your toilet twin, complete with its photo and GPS coordinates.
CEO, Lorraine Kingsley, expressed her gratitude for UK Bathrooms’ support:
We tend to take our toilet and bathroom for granted – but it’s sobering to think that a third of the world’s population lacks something as basic as a toilet.
The toilets we build are a very simple design – nothing like the beautiful toilets UK Bathrooms sells – but in the places where we work, they literally save lives. Without a toilet, people fall ill, can’t work, can’t earn, and women and girls are especially vulnerable to attack. Having a toilet enables a family to take a first big step out of poverty so UK Bathrooms’ support will change lives for ever.
