Heather Bellamy spoke with Lorraine Kingsley about how toilets are helping people escape poverty.

Uganda

The one caveat where I would say we do something different, is for instance, we have just launched Toilet Twins for the Philippines; so where people have had toilets in the past and they have understood the need for them, but because of natural disaster, or because of conflict, they have ended up in a situation where they are incredibly vulnerable. So we've got the Philippines after typhoon Haiyan; we have got toilet twins in Bangladesh where a community was hit by a cyclone and lost everything, then we will send in water and sanitation experts; we will go operational and we will build toilets to get people back on their feet quickly as a result of natural disaster. But where we're doing long term development and we're spreading the message village, to village, then it's much more important that we do the education programme.

Heather: And how many toilets are now twinned?

Lorraine: At last count, I think we're at about 30,000 twins in 40 countries across the world. We have only just told people about toilet twinning in the UK, but then when people go overseas to get a job, or they send a toilet twin to a friend or a family member who is working overseas, then it starts to spread that way.

Heather: And I believe a West Lancashire town has been crowned the UK's first Toilet Twin Town. What does that mean? What have they done?

Lorraine: This is brilliant. It is a little bit like Fair Trade Foundation and becoming an accredited Fair Trade Town. Skelmersdale is just absolutely amazing. The Vicar of St Paul's Church got inspired by Toilet Twinning and it started with St. Paul's twinning all their own toilets. After that they thought where can we go from here? And they raised money and they've coined the phrase, 'Guerrilla Twinning' and they have just raised enough money to hand out toilet twins to the local MP, supermarkets, pubs, schools, cafés and restaurants. So to become a Toilet Twin Town you have to have spread the word and the twinning activity has had to involve the community and gone much further than yourself. I think Skelmsdale as a whole, they have got over 60 toilet twins now across the community and that's because so many people, like churches together, have done it and so many people have caught the vision and thought we can do this and we can make a difference.

Heather: So finally, how can someone twin their toilet?

Lorraine: If you'd like to find out more and see what this is all about and see the number of countries, with some of the latrines that have been built, then it's all on our website, which is www.toilettwinning.org. The story of Bishwo is on our website too and it explains a little bit more about how we work in conjunction with local partners to do this work.