19/02/2008

A group of North East water workers created a splash and raised more than £2,000 for charity.

Eleven Northumbrian Water employees donned penguin costumes and took part in the Boxing Day Dip in Sunderland to raise vital funds for the water company’s adopted charity, WaterAid. 

Cara Hall, Jill Young, Ken Black, Kathryn and Stewart Waugh, Andrew Blakemore, Karen Sandell and Alistair Baker from County Durham, Frank Bozic and Markus Saelzer from Washington, Tyne & Wear, and Dave Whiteley from Tynemouth, all braved the freezing temperature of the North Sea to help save lives. 

Along with family and friends the water workers totalled 18 penguins and two fish, and scooped the trophy for best team fancy dress costume. 

Northumbrian Water’s Andrew Blakemore, whose wife Fiona and mother-in-law Frances Crooks made the costumes, said: “We were delighted to win the team prize.  But the real prize was the amount of money we’ve raised, which is enough to provide more than 135 people with a lasting supply of clean, safe water.”

More than one billion people in the developing world struggle daily with poverty and disease because they don’t have clean, safe water, and 2.6 billion people don’t have anywhere safe and hygienic to go to the toilet.

Five thousand children die every day from diarrhoeal diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery, caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation.

WaterAid works in 17 countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region to enable the world’s poorest people to access clean, safe water, effective sanitation and hygiene education.

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For further information please contact Alison Mosquera on 0191 3016 722.