Crosby’s Soroptimists have bought another toilet and are ‘flushed’ with success !
Club members presented a commemorative plaque to Matt, the manager of StoryHouse Café in Crosby at their monthly Orange Café session.
The new ‘twin’ for StoryHouse is in the small village of Yalo, near the town of Bouna in north-eastern Ivory Coast.
Toilet twinning is one of the club’s long-term projects. Good sanitation is essential for personal, public and environmental health. The provision of safe toilets is one of the targets of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals – ‘Ensure access to clean water and sanitation for all’.
The Crosby event coincided with Day 1 of ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’. This campaign, co-ordinated by UNWomen, starts on 25th November (International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women) and ends on 10th December (Human Rights Day). It highlights that violence against women is the most pervasive breach of human rights worldwide. Every 10 minutes, partners and family members killed a woman or girl intentionally in 2023.
Soroptimist Sandy Taylor said. “For women in many parts of the world a proper toilet fosters dignity – dealing with menstruation, for example. Crucially, it fosters safety. Women and girls face risks of sexual violence when they have to walk long distances to sanitation facilities, especially at night. A toilet at home reduces those risks.”
The Soroptimists took their message down to Crosby beach. Club member Vesna Levi said: “We are women against violence, so we ‘signed up’ an Iron Man as an activist. One of Antony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’ statues was bedecked with an orange t-shirt to show support for the campaign.
”Orange is a bright, optimistic colour, representing a future free of violence against women and girls.”