A KIND-HEARTED teenager has faced his fear of heights to help provide four toilets for poor communities with no proper sanitation.

Monmouth School pupil Edward Sleath, 13, scaled the 950m-high Helvellyn in the Lake District over half term, raising a total of £248 in sponsorship money.

Fellow classmates in Hereford House, who annually choose a different charity to support, picked the Toilet Twinning organisation earlier this year. The charity provides people in the poorest communities on the planet with a decent toilet, clean water and all the information they need to stay healthy.

Edward decided to kick-start the fundraising with help from patients and staff at his father’s GP practice, Kingstone Surgery, near Hereford, and seized the opportunity to climb the peak during a family holiday.

“I’m not a big fan of heights,” he said. “I was quite relieved when I reached the top and stayed away from the edge.”

Half of the money Edward raised has been used to install one toilet in Pakistan and another in Bangladesh.

These will be twinned with the loos at Kingstone Surgery.

The rest of the sponsorship funds will be used to twin Monmouth School’s toilet block with a new school block in the developing world, which is yet to be chosen.

“I was thinking about helping the charity which provides a family with a cow, but this helps more than just one family,” Edward added.

“One toilet costs £60 and the rest of the money goes towards clean water and teaching people about good sanitation – how to wash their hands properly.

“It could save people’s lives.”

Edward is very happy to have been able to make such a big difference to rural villages abroad, and is extremely grateful to everyone who supported him.

“I would like to say a huge thank you to all of my sponsors,” he added.

“It feels great to make a difference to developing countries, and the videos and documentaries I’ve seen about how much this helps really pushed me onwards.”