WELLINGTON Primary School children visited Acton Scott Working Farm in Shropshire this week to build a ‘Power Loo’, with Hereford-based Humanitarian charity Concern Universal.

Local media company Catchermedia were there too, getting children involved in the filming of the project.

The DVD will be circulated to local schools ahead of World Toilet Day on November 19.

Stuart Moore, class teacher at Wellington School said; “It was a fantastic opportunity for some hands-on learning on sustainable methods of living from Malawi; the children have thoroughly enjoyed working on all parts of the project.”

Children from years five and six at Wellington Primary School have been learning about waste, sustainability and the importance of sanitation. Over two billion people worldwide have no access to sanitation facilities. In Malawi, around one in 10 children die before they reach five years old from poor hygiene and malnutrition.

“Making a Malawian power loo at Acton Scott was a great way to link the global and the local. There were opportunities to learn from local traditional farming methods of and tying these in with rural African ingenuity” said Jenny Holland, Concern Universal Project Co-ordinator.

Concern Universal visited the school in September with Media Officer for the Gambia, Baai Jaabang, and will be helping to build the ‘Power Loo’ this week.

Children will dig the hole, collect soil, wood ash and leaves, layout bricks, weave the hut and thatch the roof.

The exhibit will be on display at Acton Scott working farm to demonstrate sustainable ways of improving sanitation in poorer countries. The ‘Power Loo’ (Arborloo-translation from Latin: tree toilet) provides a cost effective, environmentally friendly way of sanitation, and creates fertiliser to enable trees to be planted in the used soil or to grow vegetables with the fertiliser.