Toilet Twinning: Charity Representatives at Loreto want to make sure children in the developing world have the same access to toilets as they do at their own school.

Loreto Grammar School girls and staff marked World Toilet Awareness Day by launching a campaign to raise £2,000 to build eight toilet blocks in the developing world.

Over 2.4 billion people do not have access to a toilet worldwide, so Loreto want to twin each of the eight toilet blocks in their own school in Altrincham with a new toilet block in poorer communities across the planet each paid for with a £240 donation.

Cheryl Miller, Loreto Grammar School's Head of Personal Social Health and Citizenship Education (PSHCE), said: “That is one toilet block per year group and one from the staff as well. Each year group is devising their own fundraising schemes while learning about the problems of poor sanitation and hygiene which we in the West take for granted.”

The project is a partnership between the development agencies Cord and Tearfund and alongside the new building programmes, the project will provide education on clean water and hygiene for the local people.

Loreto Sixth Form Charity Representative Kirsten McNally said: “When you think the most expensive toilet ever constructed on the International Space Station cost £19 million, it makes you realise how much we still have to do back on earth to make life safer for so many people.”

Her fellow Sixth Form Charity Representative Elizabeth Reeves added: “A toilet is a necessary part of life and a fundamental human right and we need to enable communities in the developing world to improve their sanitation.”

Alongside the fundraising ideas Loreto Grammar School's Maths Department is also getting the girls to consider some of the astonishing figures raised by World Toilet Awareness Day.

Loreto's Head of Mathematics and Computing, Victoria Sims said: “Each time we flush a toilet it uses six litres of fresh water and it has been assessed that we each use 57 pieces of toilet paper every day. That's a lot of fresh water and a lot of forest.”