Toilet day duck!

10/11/2006

Twenty thousand plastic ducks will be dumped into a North East river on World Toilet Day for a charity fund raising race.

The Grand Durham Duck Race on the River Wear, organised by the Durham University Charities Kommittee (DUCK) and sponsored by Northumbrian Water, is from Elvet Bridge to Kingsgate Bridge in Durham City starting at 1pm on Sunday 19th November.

That day is internationally recognised as World Toilet Day for people around the world to talk toilets, marking the fact that 2.6 billion people – a third of the world’s total population - do not have somewhere safe, private or hygienic to go to the toilet.

Indignity, disease and death are the consequences of having no safe sanitation.

Northumbrian Water’s adopted charity WaterAid, which provides clean water, safe sanitation and hygiene education in Africa and Asia is one of the good causes that will benefit from the Durham duck race.

The other good causes are The Children’s Foundation, the Women’s Cancer Detection Society which is the 2006 Durham Mayors Appeal and the Durham City Christmas Lights.

The owner of the winning duck ticket, on sale at £1 each, will win £1,000, and the second and third placed tickets will win £300 and £200 respecitvely.

Race ducks can also be bought by mobile phone by texting ‘Duck’ to 60999. Tickets are available from the Durham Tourist Information Centre, the Prince Bishops Shopping Centre, the Durham Students Union and Clayport Library. Sellers will also be on the streets of Durham on the day of the race.

Flush notes:

19 November was declared World Toilet Day in 2001 by 17 toilet associations around the world and is now established as the global platform for academics, sanitation experts, toilet designers, environmentalists and others to share knowledge, generate awareness and promote world-wide equality.

Bacteria, viruses and parasites found in human waste are responsible for the transmission of cholera, typhoid and other infectious diseases that kill millions of people every year.  A child dies every 15 seconds from water-related illnesses in the developing world.