Central Hall Westminster today announces that it has beaten its £20,000 fundraising target since becoming a ‘Loominary’ for the Toilet Twinning charity which works to provide water and sanitation to poverty-stricken families around the world.
The money has been raised via donations to collection boxes provided by Central Hall after it twinned its own toilets at the central London conferencing and events centre. Event attendees and visitors are asked to donate any small change to help those around the world in desperate poverty to have access to a proper latrine, clean water and the information they need to be healthy.
The UK-based charity, set up in 2010, asks businesses and individuals to ‘twin’ their toilets in return for a £60 donation. The donor then receives a certificate of their toilet’s twin containing a photo, the latrine’s location and its GPS coordinates which they can proudly display in their smallest room. Central Hall Westminster is going one step further to raise much-needed funds for the scheme by providing collection boxes outside its twinned toilets and in two other locations in the building.
Over a 20-month period, Central Hall Westminster has collected a total of £21,243.32 from event professionals and visitors. As well as from event attendees, many of the donations came from visitors receiving a free tour of the iconic central London venue who wanted to say ‘thank you.’
Toilet Twinning CEO Lorraine Kingsley, comments: “We’re so grateful to all the staff at Central Hall Westminster who have been so enthusiastic in prompting people to donate to us – and to the many visitors who have given so generously to our work.
“We can assure them that their support will change lives dramatically in some of the poorest communities in the world. Even the simplest of pit latrines can make a huge contribution to helping people stay healthy and protect themselves from disease.
“Toilets are something we tend to take for granted until we don’t have ready access to one, perhaps when we are out and about or in a public building. We find people are often moved or shocked to find so many people in the world – one in three people – still don’t have a basic, safe toilet. Twinning their loo is a simple, practical way to help and it makes people appreciate their own toilet at home more too,” she added.
Paul Southern, Managing Director of Central Hall Westminster, comments: “We are very grateful to each and every one of our visitors who donated to this very important cause. We are not simply an events venue, we also exist to provide money for charitable works around the world. Any profits from the numerous and varied events held here are used to maintain our iconic building and to support charities. This scheme offers an additional way to contribute to causes that we feel strongly about.”
Central Hall Westminster will continue to support the charity, which has just completed a refurbishment of all the collection boxes at the venue.
