IT gives a whole other meaning to spending a penny.

A Slaithwaite church congregation are donating 1p every time they visit the toilet for a number one – and 2p each time they go for a number two!

The group of loo-minaries from St James’s Parish Church in Slaithwaite hope a week of toilet trips will raise £60 to buy a latrine for a village in Burundi, Africa.

According to the World Health Organisation, 2.6 billion people across the world don’t have somewhere to go to the toilet apart from in the open.

So the Churchwood Close congregation are taking part in a charity ‘toilet twinning’ scheme to save lives with better sanitation, clean water and hygiene education.

Organiser Jenny Schofield, from Linthwaite, said: “I’d heard of town twinning but never toilet twinning. When I saw it I thought it was such a funny idea and it makes such a difference to people’s lives.

“To buy a toilet is £60 so we decided that for seven days we would write down how many times we went to the toilet.

“And we’d give 1p for a wee and 2p for more than that. At the end of the week hopefully we’ll have enough.”

The church’s loo will be twinned with an African village’s new toilet and they will receive a framed certificate of their toilet’s ‘twin’ which shows a photo, the latrine’s location and its GPS co-ordinates so they can look it up on Google Earth.

Grandmother-of-five Jenny, who is a teacher at the church’s Sunday School, said: “Everyone thinks it’s a really funny and brilliant idea and a different way of fundraising – instead of just asking people to put money in a tin.

“And it’s definitely a really good Christmas present for people. I’m hoping other churches in the area get involved.”

The toilet twinning scheme is run as a partnership between UK charities Cord and Tearfund.

So far 1,600 latrines have been installed in Burundi – providing safe loos for nearly 10,000 people. And communities in Cambodia can now benefit also.

For more information please visit www.toilettwinning.org

2.6 billion people across the world don’t have somewhere safe to go to the toilet. That’s 40% of the earth’s entire population.

Every minute three children under the age of five die because of dirty water and poor sanitation

Right now more than 50% of hospital beds in developing countries are filled with people who have an illness caused by poor sanitation or dirty water

For every £1 spent on a water and sanitation programme, £8 is returned through saved time, increased productivity and reduced health costs.

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