YOU have heard about twinning towns – so now it's twinning toilets!

At the Friends Meeting House in Ross there are three toilets. As a group the Quakers, along with other users of the Meeting House, collected donations to help build toilets in various parts of the world. Certificates, including the exact location of these toilets that they have raised funds for, are now hanging up in their twinned toilets. They can even be looked up on Google Earth!

Why? Well look at the 'toilet twinning' web site. 2.6 billion people – that's 40% of the world's population – don't have somewhere safe, clean and hygienic to go to the loo. The human impact of this statistic is enormous: nearly one in five child deaths each year is due to diarrhoea.  The good news is you can help change this by twinning your toilet.

For people in poor communities, a hole in the ground is quite literally a life saver – protecting women from the risk of attack as they find somewhere private to squat, and shielding children from preventable diarrhoeal diseases. By twinning a toilet you'll be helping those who most need it to access safe sanitation, clean water and hygiene education.'

The charity, a partnership of 'Tear fund ' and 'Cord', work in different parts of the world. The Quaker's three toilets each have different twins, one in Burundi, one Cambodia and one Democratic Republic of Congo.

The idea to twin caught on. People were very generous, and within a month over £200 was collected, above the £60 per toilet that they needed to raise.

To twin with a school toilet block the donation is £240, and Friends at the Meeting House are hoping some of the local schools would like to take up the challenge as well.

So next time you' need to spend a penny' have a think about how you could get involved.