Heswall – a Toilet Twinned Town
Heswall and District Soroptimists announced the success of their campaign to make Heswall a Toilet Twinned Town. This is achieved when at least 20 organisations agree to purchase a toilet, including businesses, community groups, schools and public buildings. To mark the occasion the Mayor and Mayoress, Tony and Barbara Smith, invited Joint Club Presidents Glenys Hunt and Sue Donovan, with some of the club members to Wallasey Town Hall. After the certificate presentation the Mayor was given a twinned toilet. He praised the club members for their achievement, “Congratulations to you all for the efforts you have made for this very worthwhile cause. And thank you for the donation of a toilet, I will see that it is placed appropriately in the Town Hall.”
1 in 4 people around the world do not have access to a toilet. Toilet twinning raises funds to enable impoverished people to have clean water, basic sanitation, and learn about hygiene education – a vital combination that helps end poverty. The donor gives £60 to purchase a toilet and will receive a framed certificate and photograph to display on the wall of their own toilet, with GPS coordinates so they can look up their twin’s location.
President Glenys said “The aim of Soroptimist International is to enable women and girls worldwide to achieve their full potential, providing them with basic hygiene and sanitation will work towards this goal. Toilets are especially important for women and girls to help improve their health, safety and dignity. They are the ones most affected by the lack of privacy in going to the toilet.”
President Sue acknowledged the community involvement, “We would like to thank all the businesses, organisations and individuals in Heswall who contributed to our campaign”.
In addition to making Heswall a toilet-twinned town we managed to achieve our aim of twinning 70 toilets in total for the year, to celebrate our 70th anniversary. Our fundraising covered a variety of events, and persuasive tactics. One of the most unusual was having a toilet shaped cake made for our 70th celebrations – it certainly attracted a lot of attention. Further information about toilet twinning is available at https://www.toilettwinning.org